Do you ever feel like your marketing messages aren’t landing? What if the real issue isn’t the message itself, but how you’re communicating it? In today’s episode, we explore the art of communication with Charles Duhigg, the New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Super Communicators.
Charles shares how understanding different types of conversations can help you connect with your audience, build trust, and make your marketing more effective. We touch on how this concept applies to modern marketing strategies, such as non-salesy Meta ads that subtly invite engagement rather than pushing a direct call to action.
We’ll also share tactics you can start using immediately, whether you’re running campaigns or navigating family holiday dynamics. Tune in to take your communication and marketing skills up a notch.
In this episode:
02:56 The power of super communication
06:40 Practical vs. emotional conversations
11:03 Turning surface-level questions into deep conversations
18:58 Listening and proving you’re paying attention
22:01 Small courtesies like “please” and “thank you” have a huge impact
25:23 Communication rules across generations & online sarcasm
28:08 Connecting emotionally through Meta ads
31:30 How to connect with Charles Duhigg
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection: https://amzn.to/3Xj0ioW
- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business: https://amzn.to/4adpO6o
Previous Episode with Charles: https://perpetualtraffic.com/podcast/episode-609-unlock-the-secrets-of-connection-3-steps-to-supercommunication-with-charles-duhigg/
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Connect with Charles Duhigg:
- Website: https://charlesduhigg.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesduhigg/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charlesduhigg/
Connect with Ralph Burns:
- LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphburns
- Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/ralphhburns/
- Hire Tier11 – https://www.tiereleven.com/apply-now
Connect with Lauren Petrullo:
- Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/laurenepetrullo/
- LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenpetrullo
- Consult Mongoose Media – https://mongoosemedia.us/
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READ THE TRANSCRIPT:
The #1 Communication Book Everyone Needs to Read in 2026 with Charles Duhigg
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:08:11
Charles
We can’t have a practical conversation until we match each other on this emotional level. We are living right now through the golden age of understanding communication on meta.
00:00:08:12 – 00:00:19:01
Ralph
What we’re finding is the more non call to action kind of ads is the thing that’s crushing right now. It relates so much back to super communication and.
00:00:19:03 – 00:00:20:15
Charles
If tactic one is
00:00:21:18 – 00:00:21:22
Charles
and
00:00:23:04 – 00:00:27:08
Charles
then tactic two is.
00:00:27:10 – 00:00:36:03
Ralph
Hello and welcome to the Perpetual Traffic Podcast. This is your host, Ralph Burns, founder and CEO of tier 11, alongside my non-technical lead challenged co-host.
00:00:36:05 – 00:00:39:04
Lauren
Lauren Petrillo, the founder of Mongoose Media.
00:00:39:06 – 00:00:56:16
Ralph
So glad you joined us here today. If you’re a VP of marketing, Director of marketing, CMO or CTO trying to figure out all this marketing stuff, you have come to the right place because we try to teach people how to do this the right way through metrics and matter and growth at scales. And today, we are extremely excited to have the key to all marketing.
00:00:56:16 – 00:01:15:18
Ralph
I believe, is communication. And if you’re really good at this stuff, you are a super communicator. I am certainly not. So I’m going to be an apt pupil here on today’s show, but we have coming back for the second time. You actually requested to come back. I have no idea why, but he just to say you said I apparently had nothing to do on Thanksgiving.
00:01:15:20 – 00:01:17:19
Charles
I had so much fun the last time you did.
00:01:17:19 – 00:01:49:04
Ralph
Actually, we had an awesome time, welcoming back, New York Times bestselling author Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit, one of Castleman my favorite books and also super communicators, which is now learning my favorite books. And I think I’m going to go on a limb, Charles, on this. This is the most important book people should be listening to and or reading right now in this day and age of divisiveness, and we’re probably just coming off.
00:01:49:04 – 00:02:00:22
Ralph
Maybe I am so, so maybe not so great family experience at Thanksgiving. Maybe you can turn the tide for Christmas with some of the things that you’re going to learn here today. So welcome.
00:02:00:22 – 00:02:04:17
Charles
Absolutely can thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
00:02:04:19 – 00:02:45:09
Ralph
So I think that it is worth mentioning that the last show that we do, we’ll leave links in the show notes, which was July of last year. We talked high level about the two books that are just amazing. Power of Habit and Super Communicators and how they sort of crossover today. The super communicators, having read it over the course of the last couple of weeks, again, I really did realize that this is like there’s so many individual little hacks and tips and tricks of like, you, you explain it in allegory fashion through storytelling, but also give the reader tactical things that they can do in everyday life.
00:02:45:09 – 00:03:06:12
Ralph
I was just telling you about a cocktail party I was at, or I knew no one. I was like, I wish I had actually reread this chapter. So that’s what we’re going to be talking about here today is those sorts of things. So, there’s a couple of different stories in here that I think are really just compelling because of the way things are right now in the world also.
00:03:06:12 – 00:03:17:03
Ralph
So put that out there. I’ll let you go wherever you want to go with it and maybe explain sort of the concept behind super communicators and sort of how you got to this point.
00:03:17:06 – 00:03:37:05
Charles
So you’re exactly right. I mean, obviously the folks who are listening to this are probably super communicators. They’re professional communicators, right? You know, people who communicate for a living, even if you’re just an executive in a company that has nothing to do with marketing and has nothing to do with with the internet, you’re still really a communication professional because you’re communicating through your direct reports.
00:03:37:05 – 00:04:02:06
Charles
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.
00:04:02:06 – 00:04:18:15
Charles
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 those conversations that most of them fall into one of three buckets.
00:04:18:15 – 00:04:29:20
Charles
Most of them are either practical, we’re talking about solving problems or 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.
00:04:29:20 – 00:04:32:06
Ralph
Relate to each other and laughing.
00:04:32:08 – 00:04:36:11
Lauren
Like every conversation is emotional. This month, it’s November.
00:04:36:13 – 00:04:37:16
Ralph
We’ve had quite a few of those.
00:04:37:16 – 00:04:54:20
Charles
Yeah, yeah, it’s November is over. And then you come out of Thanksgiving and you’re you’re like, what the like? I just get to hold my breath for a little couple of weeks before I have to have another round of really, really awkward conversations. But so understanding what kind of conversation is occurring and matching the other person or inviting them to match you, that’s really powerful.
00:04:54:20 – 00:04:55:03
Charles
And then.
00:04:55:03 – 00:04:58:23
Ralph
The third type is the reciprocal social social.
00:04:59:02 – 00:05:20:18
Charles
Side. Yeah, yeah. Which is about like how we relate to each other, how we relate to society, the identities that are important to us. A lot of the conversations with our family, we say like, you’re not giving them the respect I deserve because you’re trying to be the parent, even though I’m your kid who’s, you know, in my 40s or crazy uncle Gary, when crazy Uncle Gary is like, everyone thinks I’m crazy, but I think lizard people run the government.
00:05:20:22 – 00:05:28:14
Charles
Like, those are oftentimes identity conversations, social conversations. And, and once we understand that, it’s a, they’re a lot easier to.
00:05:28:14 – 00:05:57:23
Ralph
Have coming off Thanksgiving. And you did have that conversation with Uncle Gary or Uncle Bob, in my case, it’s true story. One of the best passages from the book was just sort of pull this one out is the where wherever you stand on this in your ideology, your political beliefs doesn’t matter. The point is this is that the example that you use in this book, which is counterintuitive, it’s almost like and I think you’ve even mentioned this is like Jedi mind tricks, but actually not manipulative in this way.
00:05:57:23 – 00:06:21:18
Ralph
Is that like, there’s a great deal of people right now which are highly relevant in the fact that they’re suspect of vaccines? And I actually just read in Massachusetts, of all places, like the bluest of blue states, maybe the exception of California, where you live, is that 10% of people are reluctant or have questions or are not going to give their kids vaccine.
00:06:21:18 – 00:06:38:14
Ralph
So it’s a divisive issue. And you actually talk about this like how, I believe it was a pediatrician, maybe an internist. Yeah. How they talk about this. Maybe I could just sort of talk about that. I thought a little transformative. I was like, I had to listen to it 2 or 3 times because in preparation for Thanksgiving this week.
00:06:38:16 – 00:06:57:01
Charles
Yeah. No, it’s and it’s really interesting. And so, yeah, there was a bunch of experiments. It 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 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.
00:06:57:01 – 00:07:19:21
Charles
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 it, you could never persuade someone.
00:07:19:21 – 00:07:40:01
Charles
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.
00:07:40:05 – 00:07:59:05
Charles
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.
00:07:59:07 – 00:08:15:05
Charles
And so oftentimes what doctors will do is will 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.
00:08:15:05 – 00:08:30:15
Charles
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.
00:08:30:21 – 00:08:54:11
Charles
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 touch supplies at this? Yeah. Personalized. Personalized. Yeah. Personalized. But but instead of having to to think about this on a purely emotional level, do I have your permission to move us into sort of the practical questions?
00:08:54:13 – 00:09:12:17
Charles
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. They’re absorbing what the arguments you’re trying to make. And most most of the time they agree to get the shot. If if that’s the thing that you’re, you’re advocating for.
00:09:12:19 – 00:09:39:18
Charles
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.
00:09:39:23 – 00:09:47:18
Charles
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.
00:09:47:18 – 00:09:48:20
Ralph
To each other. You’re going to feel a little.
00:09:48:20 – 00:09:54:11
Charles
Bit closer to each other. And oftentimes that’s all that we need to coexist peacefully.
00:09:54:12 – 00:10:12:05
Ralph
The interesting part to that, and I was sort of expecting that when I reread it, read listen to it, I forget, which I did, at this point is there was no like closing question like, so what do you say? Right. That was not right. Yeah. No, there was.
00:10:12:05 – 00:10:30:11
Charles
There was not a call to action. Right. There’s not the closure question which and and I think this is different because like in advertising, we’re very explicit that we’re trying to convince someone of something right, where we’re not necessarily in advertising, we’re not looking to have a conversation, we’re a dialog. We’re looking to kind of have a little bit of a monologue.
00:10:30:11 – 00:10:49:01
Charles
Right? You, my, my ad pops up. But most of the conversations that happen in real life are conversations where they are dialogs it. If there’s not a back and forth, then, then it’s really not a conversation. And one of the hallmarks of a good conversation is oftentimes it doesn’t end because you’ve gotten to the end of the conversation.
00:10:49:01 – 00:11:02:05
Charles
It ends because you’ve run out of time. And so so you don’t have to have the final question or the killer closure, because oftentimes you feel so close that it’s easy for people to just kind of continue it, pick it up again.
00:11:02:07 – 00:11:29:11
Ralph
Yeah. What I find really interesting about this is that we’ve had another like I think of super communicators is a way of like connecting. And I think there’s persuasion. There’s a there’s a persuasive part of this to a certain degree. We add another guest on here or in class, but there is also a he was written multiple books on this, and his last book was very similar to how you’re positioning this right now.
00:11:29:11 – 00:11:48:17
Ralph
And I think this is super important if you’re a manager, salesperson, marketer. I can also relate this to how marketing is actually done right now. Was this creative diversification thing that we’ve been talking about here for the Meta Andromeda update? Is that you make the subject the prospect feel like it’s their idea.
00:11:48:19 – 00:11:50:19
Charles
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
00:11:50:19 – 00:12:02:00
Ralph
And that that is what Oren class says. And flip the script. He’s like, you don’t sell them. You make them feel like they sold themselves. That’s exactly right. It’s exactly the same principle.
00:12:02:02 – 00:12:18:16
Charles
Which is exactly the same. And and so 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.
00:12:18:18 – 00:12:36:06
Charles
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 yeah, 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.
00:12:36:08 – 00:12:58:19
Charles
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.
00:12:59:00 – 00:13:20:04
Charles
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 quite the deep question like, tell me, tell me what’s bugging you about your marketing right now. Like, what’s the thing that’s driving you crazy, right? And now they’re starting to describe their problem to you. And you say like, well, have you thought about have you thought about this solution that we’re experts in now?
00:13:20:04 – 00:13:34:23
Charles
They’re convincing themselves that this is the right answer, and that’s so much more effective. And so we like to we like to work with and we like to buy from, and we like to sell to people who we like. And the way that we like people is through conversation, real conversation.
00:13:35:01 – 00:13:54:13
Ralph
And this this is the thing that I wish I had had a desk at this park that weekend. Was that because in the passage in the book, you say sell, shallow questions can become deep very quickly, just like what you said, you know, start off with, hey, where’d you go to medical school? Like, I know a lot of doctors.
00:13:54:13 – 00:14:02:20
Ralph
And then it’s like, sort of ends up there. Oh, I went to Harvard. Like. Oh, great. Well, I worked in and around the Harvard area for years and years, and then it’s like, then where do you go?
00:14:02:22 – 00:14:07:09
Charles
Yeah, exactly. Whereas if you ask a why question or you say, oh, Harvard, how’d you like it?
00:14:07:14 – 00:14:08:21
Ralph
How did you like, how.
00:14:08:23 – 00:14:17:09
Charles
Are you so close to people at Harvard? Like, is it still a big part of your life? Yeah, like those are real questions and they’re just as easy to ask, but they bring you to a real place.
00:14:17:11 – 00:14:33:03
Ralph
Cocktail party questions like are even more like, this is like, you know, you meet somebody and I tell you this before we hit record here today, it’s like, you know, where do you live? Can then all of a sudden you can ask a deeper question, which would be what? Then all of a sudden your deep like a great following.
00:14:33:04 – 00:14:33:10
Ralph
Yeah.
00:14:33:12 – 00:14:46:01
Charles
Like what do you like about the Heights. Like why why did you decide to move to the Heights. Right. Oh, it’s because you move there because like, the community is so great. That’s that’s funny. I live in the valley for the same reason. Like. Like what? You know. Do you do you belong to a synagogue? Do you belong to church?
00:14:46:01 – 00:15:01:15
Charles
Like there’s all these questions that like, give us an insight, a window into who this person really is. And the truth matter is, and we all know this. We love being asked real questions, right? Everybody loves being asked your questions. Nobody wants to have a boring conversation like, oh, you’re kids go to this school. My kids go to that school.
00:15:01:19 – 00:15:10:02
Charles
They want to be asked like, you know, when your kids are like they’re applying for college right now, is it driving you crazy? Because it’s driving me crazy, right? Like that’s a real conversation.
00:15:10:02 – 00:15:17:18
Ralph
Nobody really wants small talk. Like nobody wants surface conversations. Although I do know a couple of people who like surfacing conversations, but, well.
00:15:17:19 – 00:15:37:17
Charles
It’s interesting because there’s been a bunch of studies looking at this. So there’s something called the Fast Friends procedure. And what’s interesting about the fast rate, it’s it’s it’s 36 questions that studies have shown. If people go back and forth asking these 36 questions, and it 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.
00:15:37:17 – 00:15:58:10
Charles
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 deemed by the second or third question. So it’s weird if I come up to you and I ask, for instance, like, oh, just out of curiosity, when’s the last time you cried in front of another person?
00:15:58:10 – 00:16:11:20
Charles
By the way, my name is Charles. Nice to meet you. Right. Yeah. That’s that’s not going to go over so well, but if I come up, ask you like I know. 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.
00:16:11:20 – 00:16:30:17
Charles
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. And I’m basically asking you when’s the last time you cried in front of. Yeah, but yeah, like the other. The nice thing about it is that if you’ll notice, each of those questions was posed as an invitation rather than a mandate.
00:16:30:19 – 00:16:51:00
Charles
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 and like, I find it doesn’t. If they didn’t want to get deep with you, that’s totally fine.
00:16:51:00 – 00:17:01:08
Charles
And they’ll let you know. The point is that, you know, you’re a super communicator. You know, this tactic, you know how to do it, and you can invite people to get deep with you and they can choose to say yes or no.
00:17:01:10 – 00:17:18:22
Ralph
It’s so good. And, in a couple of your examples there, people go back and hit rewind here, they’ll actually hear you asking that first question, and then the deeper question then and then relating it back to yourself quickly, but not too much because otherwise. Yeah, it’s a monologue in an interview.
00:17:18:23 – 00:17:36:19
Charles
Right? That’s the nice thing about deep questions is that when you ask someone a deep question in the answer, it it’s very natural to answer your own question. So why do you say I become a doctor? Oh, my dad got sick when I was a kid, and I. 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?
00:17:36:21 – 00:17:57:10
Charles
And now I can ask another deep question. You’re exactly right. We’ve all been at that party where someone asks us where we went on vacation, and we realize about 30s into answering the question that they don’t care. They just want to tell us where they went on vacation. Yes. And and but that’s easy to avoid if we’re asking genuine questions that we’re really interested in and deep questions almost always are genuinely interesting.
00:17:57:10 – 00:17:57:20
Charles
It’s a great.
00:17:57:20 – 00:18:17:13
Ralph
Quote I heard once. I’m going to butcher this, but it was the former prime minister of Britain that says, like, I went to the party and I met him as Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli. He said the difference between him and every other prime minister I’ve ever met is that when I met the other prime ministers, I felt that they were the most important people in the world.
00:18:17:15 – 00:18:22:06
Ralph
Whereas when I met Disraeli, I felt like I was the most important person in the world. Yeah.
00:18:22:08 – 00:18:33:00
Charles
Yeah, Bill Clinton has that same capacity, right? Yeah. It’s just this, this guy and actually and I’m going to say this as, as someone who’s not necessarily a fan of this person, but actually Donald Trump does too.
00:18:33:00 – 00:18:33:07
Ralph
Yeah.
00:18:33:10 – 00:18:42:16
Charles
Like like when you’re we I’ve gone to a number of rallies. I’ve met him and been in the room and he meets other people. He kind of turns that laser beam on you and it feels special.
00:18:42:18 – 00:18:57:08
Ralph
Yeah, I noticed that about, like, George Bush, too, apparently. Yeah. And I’ve never met him, but, I mean, I could see what you’re saying. I was like, you know, it’s a reason why he’s where he’s hat. It’s not just because of the outward appearance.
00:18:57:10 – 00:19:26:12
Charles
And there’s something else going on there. So if tactic one is ask more questions and ask deep questions, then tactic two is prove that you’re listening. Right. So we tell the story in the book of, this experiment that was done with people who were gun control advocates and gun rights activists, and these researchers brought them together to kind of the goal was not to convince each other, because these are people who are sort of like sworn enemies, but just to see if you could have them have a civil conversation where they feel connected afterwards.
00:19:26:13 – 00:19:44:11
Charles
And so they go ahead and they bring them into a room and they teach them this one technique. It’s a technique known as looping for understanding as three steps. Step one is ask a question, preferably a deep question. If you hear step two is after the person has answered the question, prove that you’re paying attention by repeating back what you heard them tell you.
00:19:44:11 – 00:20:06:15
Charles
But the goal here is not mimicry. The goal here is to show them that you’re thinking about it. You’re paying attention. Oh, I heard you say this thing and it reminded me of something else you said back a little while ago. And most of us end up doing this, these two first two steps kind of intuitively right. It’s step three that I always forget because step three is once you’ve repeated back what you heard the person say, ask them.
00:20:06:15 – 00:20:26:11
Charles
If you got it right. Oh, because what I’m actually, did I hear you correctly? Because what I’m actually doing in that moment is I’m asking you for permission to acknowledge that I was listening. And if you acknowledge that I was listening to you, you become ten times more likely to listen to me in return. So step one is ask these questions.
00:20:26:11 – 00:20:44:17
Charles
Step two is prove that you’re listening by asking follow up questions, by engaging and looping for understanding, by doing a callback where you say, oh, you said this thing at the beginning of the conversation. That’s really interesting to me. And germane now, right when we do that, and am I hearing you correctly when we do that, the other person feels listened to.
00:20:44:18 – 00:20:48:19
Charles
That’s why they feel special. They feel like you are paying attention to them.
00:20:48:21 – 00:21:08:05
Ralph
Yeah. You know, it’s funny, like now that you mention it, I have one friend who does that so well. Yeah. And it’s so we don’t get together all that much. But when I do, it’s like, wow. Like we’re really great friends. But he has probably 20 other people just like me because he’s very does the same. Damn thing to them.
00:21:08:05 – 00:21:11:10
Ralph
They probably all feel the same way. It’s I never get to hang out with them.
00:21:11:16 – 00:21:24:17
Charles
Yeah. Is that is that we are all super communicators at one time or another, right? When we are talking to our siblings or when we’re talking to our best friend, and we just know we know exactly what question to ask it to to make them feel better. We know when they want help and when they just want it.
00:21:24:17 – 00:21:48:18
Charles
Like they want a suggestion and when they want like a shoulder to cry on. As humans, we have evolved to be amazing at communication, and so we know how to be super communicators with some people. The difference is that there are these consistent super communicators, people who recognize, oh, I can treat everyone like I treat my best friend right the same, the same skills that I use with my best friend, I can use with a stranger on the bus.
00:21:48:20 – 00:21:57:06
Charles
That’s like the folks, the the person you were just mentioning. They end up connecting with almost everyone. Yeah, everyone there they want.
00:21:57:06 – 00:21:59:13
Ralph
To and they have a very busy social calendar.
00:21:59:18 – 00:22:00:04
Charles
They do.
00:22:00:09 – 00:22:24:00
Ralph
I give their yeah, I know the time is short here, but I wanted to ask you this question. This is something that I don’t think I picked up the first time I read it, but it’s something that have been conscious of, and first time I’ve ever read it in a book like yours is in a virtual company. Like we, Lauren and I both run virtual companies and so much of our communication is done through slack, through emails, through project management.
00:22:24:00 – 00:22:47:10
Ralph
So it’s kind of a click up, you name it, and you talk about these two magical phrases. We didn’t talk about this in pre-record that you recommend for people to use, especially in fast communication. Back in force when if you’re running a lot of your communication through like slack messages, it can be quick, could be text messages, you know, or whatever it is instant messaging.
00:22:47:12 – 00:22:49:10
Ralph
Can we talk about that just for a second?
00:22:49:10 – 00:22:52:01
Charles
Sure, sure. And which phrases in particular do you mean?
00:22:52:04 – 00:23:14:02
Ralph
It was the use of please and thank you. Yeah. And I thought it was and I, I am consciously aware of this and that I will do like a mass of, of slack communications. And then I’ll think back like, man, I did I communicate that right. And then I’ll go back and did I, you know.
00:23:14:03 – 00:23:17:00
Charles
What I say? I sound like an asshole. So and then I actually.
00:23:17:01 – 00:23:18:13
Ralph
Please or thank you. It is like.
00:23:18:13 – 00:23:49:18
Charles
Asking it out. Yeah. So so there’s this one researcher. What he did is he got a bunch of, debates between Wikipedia editors. So we have all of the records right in the end. And Wikipedia editors take their job very, very seriously. So they would get into these huge debates. And what he found was these would often spiral into conflicts, like name calling people being really upset with each other unless there was one person, all it took was one person saying please or thank you, and it would bring down the temperature often by like up to 60%.
00:23:49:22 – 00:24:15:20
Charles
Wow. So. So why is that? Well, it turns out it’s because different forms of communication have slightly different rules. Right. And and oftentimes we’re subconsciously aware of this without you realizing it. When you’re on the telephone, you will over enunciate your words by about 30%. You’ll put about 20% more emotion into your voice because you know the other person can’t see you, so you’re not aware that you’re doing this.
00:24:15:20 – 00:24:32:00
Charles
You’re doing this almost unconsciously, but it’s because your brain has learned that there are rules about speech on the telephone. I need to over enunciate a little bit. I need to put more emotion in my voice every form of communication has its own unique rules, and slack has its own rules. Texting has its own rules. Email has its own rules.
00:24:32:04 – 00:24:49:22
Charles
When we get into trouble is when we forget to remind ourselves that those rules. We’re worse in such a hurry that we’re just like typing as fast as we can. And instead of saying please or thank you because we know that please or thank you really makes a big difference online, we just say, hey, go do this. And the person on the other end is like, screw you, jerk.
00:24:49:22 – 00:25:09:23
Charles
I’m like, yeah, like, you don’t get to tell me what to do and that suddenly you have this conflict. But if we just say, hey, would you mind please doing this? Right. Thank you so much changes everything. And so part of digital communications is just taking a second and saying, okay, I’m sending this text. Would this be better as an email?
00:25:10:02 – 00:25:22:09
Charles
Like, like would this be better face to face if I am going to send it as a text, these like what’s going to help soften it a little bit, make it make it more palatable. We all know those rules. We just tend to ignore them because we’re in such a hurry sometimes. Are there.
00:25:22:09 – 00:25:25:14
Lauren
Rules that change generationally or, regionally.
00:25:25:16 – 00:25:46:01
Charles
With yeah. So, so not so much within the regions of a nation, but definitely, across the world, right? From culture to culture and yes, generationally. Right. Like my kids, if I put, when I text my kids, if I put punctuation in my texts, they say, dad, it makes it seem like you’re really angry at us.
00:25:46:01 – 00:26:04:03
Charles
And I’m like, what are you talking about? It’s punctuation. Like, who? Who doesn’t write with punctuation. But again, that’s a rule that I didn’t know for teenagers texting. All right. So like and I learned that rule. And now I don’t put now I don’t put punctuation in or I do. And then I put like 12 exclamation points because I know it’ll drive them crazy.
00:26:04:08 – 00:26:21:08
Charles
Yeah. But but the point is that. Yeah, absolutely. It changes and, but it’s very easy for us to pick up on how it works if we simply ask other people about it, or if we just pay attention to how they’re communicating with us. If I had paid attention to the fact that my kids never put punctuation in their texts, I would have seen something there.
00:26:21:10 – 00:26:44:07
Ralph
Yeah. So true. The last thing is the use of sarcasm online. You talk about that. And I always, this is always this is a real trap because I did this yesterday, and then I reread the passage in the book this morning and I was like, oh my God, I forgot to, like, put an emoji after head or a GIF or something, or a smiley face.
00:26:44:09 – 00:26:59:06
Ralph
Right? And I always tell people like whenever I talk about like building a virtual company and we’ve been doing this for 10 or 15 years now. It’s like I say, the emojis online are like, saved this company because, yeah, it really communicate without like a smiley face or a crying face or whatever.
00:26:59:06 – 00:27:19:14
Charles
Yeah, exactly. Well, and so what I love about it is that emojis, if you think about it, are emotional communication in a digital form. Right. Like like when I send you a smiley face, it’s not the same as me typing out smiley face like that smiley face is something that’s come to convey an emotion. So so we can have emotional conversations in.
00:27:19:14 – 00:27:37:18
Charles
In fact, our kids have emotional conversations with emojis all the time. If you if you ask your kids to look at their text messages, I guarantee you some of them will just be a string of emojis, right? But they know how to to to decode that. They know that that’s basically me saying, hey, I was happy. And then I was sad, and then I got angry and then I got happy again.
00:27:37:22 – 00:27:43:08
Charles
Right? It’s not hard to learn these rules. It’s just sometimes we forget to remind ourselves of them.
00:27:43:10 – 00:28:08:07
Ralph
Yeah. So good. Well, I think everything that we talked about here in today’s show is going to be helpful for anyone and everyone, whether it’s, you know, intercommunication between their family members in and around holidays or whether you’re a CEO or you’re a VP of marketing trying to lead staff here, or you’re just whoever you are or doing whatever you need to do in marketing.
00:28:08:09 – 00:28:33:03
Ralph
The interesting part of this, though, and I do want to say this is tying this back to one of the bigger strategies that we found right now is that on meta, for example, what we’re finding is the more non call to action kind of ads that just allow the consumer to make their own decision by just putting the message in front of them is the thing that’s crushing right now.
00:28:33:05 – 00:28:36:00
Ralph
Yeah. And they had so much invitation.
00:28:36:00 – 00:28:38:12
Charles
It’s invitations making that invitation.
00:28:38:12 – 00:28:42:07
Ralph
It relates so much back to super communication in a lot of ways. Well.
00:28:42:09 – 00:28:59:12
Charles
Like it’s interesting you mentioned that because, you know, one of the stories in the book is about how the show, the Big Bang Theory, the TV show, became actually the most popular sitcom in history. Oh yeah. And it’s paired with a story about NASA and how NASA looks for astronauts with emotional intelligence by studying how they laugh.
00:28:59:13 – 00:29:19:04
Charles
And I think what’s interesting about both of those, that’s that applies to what you were just saying is they’re both very, very soft approaches right there. When I’m writing a sitcom, if I try and force you to laugh, if I try and say you have to laugh, people don’t like it, right? They like to be invited to laugh.
00:29:19:04 – 00:29:37:20
Charles
They like to be invited to find the humor. But if you’re and if you’re coming in with one of those heavy handed messages like, oh, friendship is really what’s most important. Like, everyone’s going to be like, whatever, dude. Yeah, you’re exactly right. That oftentimes what we’re trying to do, even though it’s static, even though we can’t hear the other person, we’re trying to have a conversation with the customer.
00:29:37:20 – 00:29:55:09
Charles
We’re trying to have a conversation with the viewer, with the client. And a big part of that is making them feel like we are hearing them. Even if we don’t have a chance to hear their words. I know that you don’t want to be sold to for this product on meta right now, and so I’m going to show you that I’m paying attention to you.
00:29:55:09 – 00:30:13:06
Charles
I’m going to show you instead of trying to to sell you instead of you’re making this a, a call to action. Like I’m just going to say, look, here’s this thing that’s interesting to me. It might be interesting to you. If you have any questions, I’d love to engage with you about it. That is an invitation that I think is it starts a conversation and that’s powerful.
00:30:13:08 – 00:30:31:23
Ralph
Yeah, it’s so true because that’s where people naturally don’t want to be. There are some people that are at bottom of the funnel, are ready to buy right now. And all that is. Yeah, 3%. Yes, 3%, if not less. But the point is, is like that. That takes out 97% of your potential market. So you’ve got to approach it differently and you can’t.
00:30:31:23 – 00:30:32:19
Charles
Exactly.
00:30:32:21 – 00:30:33:16
Ralph
Pitch.
00:30:33:18 – 00:30:47:01
Charles
And if they’re coming to you because they feel like they have like you are a brand that has means something to them right now, I’m an Apple person. I’m a nobody ever says like, I’m an Exxon person or a Chevron person. That’s right. But I’m an affiliate.
00:30:47:01 – 00:30:50:13
Lauren
But there are people that say, buc-ee’s. But guys, there’s.
00:30:50:13 – 00:30:51:15
Ralph
Yes, that’s exactly my.
00:30:51:15 – 00:31:16:19
Charles
But Bucky is a great example, right? Because Bucky’s is having a conversation with its customer. It’s it’s saying it’s asking them deep questions. It’s saying, you know, when you come to a Bucky’s are what are you looking for? You’re looking for you’re you’re a family man who’s on the road, you’re looking for clean bathrooms. You’re looking for, you know, sort of a wholesome place where you can sit down and you don’t feel like you got like all these people all over you, and it’s just dirty.
00:31:16:19 – 00:31:29:22
Charles
And you having that conversation is really important. And a conversation is a two way street. It means you have to listen to your customer. You have to show them that you’re listening to them, and you have to invite them to share with you.
00:31:30:00 – 00:31:33:14
Ralph
Fantastic. Where can people connect with you? Where is the best?
00:31:33:15 – 00:31:52:17
Charles
Absolutely you can find me on so so super communicators is in power, is in, paperback now. It’s wherever you buy your books if you listen to books online, or listen to books, on audible or anywhere else, you can download it from Audible or Spotify, I actually read it myself. And then if you want to find me, I’m just at Charles duhigg.com.
00:31:52:17 – 00:32:02:17
Charles
It’s d uhi gqom and my email address is on there. And I’d love to hear from anyone. And, and I actually read and respond to every email I get from a reader.
00:32:02:17 – 00:32:28:02
Ralph
So they, like you are full to giving out. That’s impressive. Yeah, yeah. Seriously, guys, best like, this is the book you should be reading right now, the most important book of 2025 and 2026. And I am not exaggerating. It’s just not because you’ve been a two time guest here. You get preferential treatment. Point is, I think it’s super important for all of us to get a deeper understanding of what the other person is all about, and I think this is a way to really connect with them.
00:32:28:02 – 00:32:44:16
Ralph
And I think, you know, the book is tremendous and gives you so many tactical ways. We’ve just scratched the surface here on today’s show. But go get the book. We’ll leave links in the show notes, obviously over a perpetual traffic.com. Charles, thank you so much for coming back for episode. Thank you for having me. Yeah, this is.
00:32:44:16 – 00:32:46:03
Charles
Such a treat. I really much.
00:32:46:04 – 00:33:02:03
Ralph
I really appreciate it. Oh, so on behalf of my amazing co-host Lauren E Petrillo. So until next show, see you.
