-
All right, I want to see a show of hands:
-
how many of you have
unfriended someone on Facebook
-
because they said something offensive
about politics or religion,
-
childcare, food?
-
(Laughter)
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And how many of you
know at least one person that you avoid
-
because you just don't want
to talk to them?
-
(Laughter)
-
You know, it used to be that in order
to have a polite conversation,
-
we just had to follow the advice
of Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady":
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Stick to the weather and your health.
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But these days, with climate change
and anti-vaxxing, those subjects --
-
(Laughter)
-
are not safe either.
-
So this world that we live in,
-
this world in which every conversation
-
has the potential
to devolve into an argument,
-
where our politicians
can't speak to one another
-
and where even the most trivial of issues
-
have someone fighting both passionately
for it and against it, it's not normal.
-
Pew Research did a study
of 10,000 American adults,
-
and they found that at this moment,
we are more polarized,
-
we are more divided,
-
than we ever have been in history.
-
We're less likely to compromise,
-
which means we're
not listening to each other.
-
And we make decisions about where to live,
-
who to marry and even
who our friends are going to be,
-
based on what we already believe.
-
Again, that means
we're not listening to each other.
-
A conversation requires a balance
between talking and listening,
-
and somewhere along the way,
we lost that balance.
-
Now, part of that is due to technology.
-
The smartphones that you all
either have in your hands
-
or close enough that you could
grab them really quickly.
-
According to Pew Research,
-
about a third of American teenagers
send more than a hundred texts a day.
-
And many of them, almost most of them,
are more likely to text their friends
-
than they are to talk
to them face to face.
-
There's this great piece in The Atlantic.
-
It was written by a high school teacher
named Paul Barnwell.
-
And he gave his kids
a communication project.
-
He wanted to teach them how to speak
on a specific subject without using notes.
-
And he said this: "I came to realize..."
-
(Laughter)
-
"I came to realize
that conversational competence
-
might be the single
most overlooked skill we fail to teach.
-
Kids spend hours each day engaging
with ideas and each other through screens,
-
but rarely do they have an opportunity
-
to hone their interpersonal
communications skills.
-
It might sound like a funny question,
but we have to ask ourselves:
-
Is there any 21st-century skill
-
more important than being able to sustain
coherent, confident conversation?"
-
Now, I make my living talking to people:
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Nobel Prize winners, truck drivers,
-
billionaires, kindergarten teachers,
-
heads of state, plumbers.
-
I talk to people that I like.
I talk to people that I don't like.
-
I talk to some people that I disagree with
deeply on a personal level.
-
But I still have
a great conversation with them.
-
So I'd like to spend the next 10 minutes
or so teaching you how to talk
-
and how to listen.
-
Many of you have already heard
a lot of advice on this,
-
things like look the person in the eye,
-
think of interesting topics
to discuss in advance,
-
look, nod and smile to show
that you're paying attention,
-
repeat back what you just heard
or summarize it.
-
So I want you to forget all of that.
-
It is crap.
-
(Laughter)
-
There is no reason to learn
how to show you're paying attention
-
if you are in fact paying attention.
-
(Laughter)
-
(Applause)
-
Now, I actually use the exact
same skills as a professional interviewer
-
that I do in regular life.
-
So, I'm going to teach you
how to interview people,
-
and that's actually going to help you
learn how to be better conversationalists.
-
Learn to have a conversation
-
without wasting your time,
without getting bored,
-
and, please God,
without offending anybody.
-
We've all had really great conversations.
-
We've had them before.
We know what it's like.
-
The kind of conversation where you
walk away feeling engaged and inspired,
-
or where you feel
like you've made a real connection
-
or you've been perfectly understood.
-
There is no reason
-
why most of your interactions
can't be like that.
-
So I have 10 basic rules.
I'm going to walk you through all of them,
-
but honestly, if you just choose
one of them and master it,
-
you'll already enjoy better conversations.
-
Number one: Don't multitask.
-
And I don't mean
just set down your cell phone
-
or your tablet or your car keys
or whatever is in your hand.
-
I mean, be present.
-
Be in that moment.
-
Don't think about your argument
you had with your boss.
-
Don't think about what
you're going to have for dinner.
-
If you want to get out
of the conversation,
-
get out of the conversation,
-
but don't be half in it
and half out of it.
-
Number two: Don't pontificate.
-
If you want to state your opinion
-
without any opportunity for response
or argument or pushback or growth,
-
write a blog.
-
(Laughter)
-
Now, there's a really good reason
why I don't allow pundits on my show:
-
Because they're really boring.
-
If they're conservative, they're going to
hate Obama and food stamps and abortion.
-
If they're liberal, they're going to hate
-
big banks and oil corporations
and Dick Cheney.
-
Totally predictable.
-
And you don't want to be like that.
-
You need to enter every conversation
assuming that you have something to learn.
-
The famed therapist M. Scott Peck said
-
that true listening requires
a setting aside of oneself.
-
And sometimes that means
setting aside your personal opinion.
-
He said that sensing this acceptance,
-
the speaker will become
less and less vulnerable
-
and more and more likely
to open up the inner recesses
-
of his or her mind to the listener.
-
Again, assume that you have
something to learn.
-
Bill Nye: "Everyone you will ever meet
knows something that you don't."
-
I put it this way:
-
Everybody is an expert in something.
-
Number three: Use open-ended questions.
-
In this case, take a cue from journalists.
-
Start your questions with who,
what, when, where, why or how.
-
If you put in a complicated question,
you're going to get a simple answer out.
-
If I ask you, "Were you terrified?"
-
you're going to respond to the most
powerful word in that sentence,
-
which is "terrified," and the answer is
"Yes, I was" or "No, I wasn't."
-
"Were you angry?" "Yes, I was very angry."
-
Let them describe it.
They're the ones that know.
-
Try asking them things like,
"What was that like?"
-
"How did that feel?"
-
Because then they might have to stop
for a moment and think about it,
-
and you're going to get
a much more interesting response.
-
Number four: Go with the flow.
-
That means thoughts
will come into your mind
-
and you need to let them
go out of your mind.
-
We've heard interviews often
-
in which a guest is talking
for several minutes
-
and then the host comes back in
and asks a question
-
which seems like it comes out of nowhere,
or it's already been answered.
-
That means the host probably
stopped listening two minutes ago
-
because he thought
of this really clever question,
-
and he was just bound
and determined to say that.
-
And we do the exact same thing.
-
We're sitting there having
a conversation with someone,
-
and then we remember that time
that we met Hugh Jackman in a coffee shop.
-
(Laughter)
-
And we stop listening.
-
Stories and ideas
are going to come to you.
-
You need to let them come and let them go.
-
Number five: If you don't know,
say that you don't know.
-
Now, people on the radio,
especially on NPR,
-
are much more aware
that they're going on the record,
-
and so they're more careful
about what they claim to be an expert in
-
and what they claim to know for sure.
-
Do that. Err on the side of caution.
-
Talk should not be cheap.
-
Number six: Don't equate
your experience with theirs.
-
If they're talking
about having lost a family member,
-
don't start talking about the time
you lost a family member.
-
If they're talking about the trouble
they're having at work,
-
don't tell them about
how much you hate your job.
-
It's not the same. It is never the same.
-
All experiences are individual.
-
And, more importantly,
it is not about you.
-
You don't need to take that moment
to prove how amazing you are
-
or how much you've suffered.
-
Somebody asked Stephen Hawking once
what his IQ was, and he said,
-
"I have no idea. People who brag
about their IQs are losers."
-
(Laughter)
-
Conversations are not
a promotional opportunity.
-
Number seven:
-
Try not to repeat yourself.
-
It's condescending,
and it's really boring,
-
and we tend to do it a lot.
-
Especially in work conversations
or in conversations with our kids,
-
we have a point to make,
-
so we just keep rephrasing it
over and over.
-
Don't do that.
-
Number eight: Stay out of the weeds.
-
Frankly, people don't care
-
about the years, the names,
-
the dates, all those details
-
that you're struggling
to come up with in your mind.
-
They don't care.
What they care about is you.
-
They care about what you're like,
-
what you have in common.
-
So forget the details. Leave them out.
-
Number nine:
-
This is not the last one,
but it is the most important one.
-
Listen.
-
I cannot tell you how many
really important people have said
-
that listening is perhaps the most,
the number one most important skill
-
that you could develop.
-
Buddha said, and I'm paraphrasing,
-
"If your mouth is open,
you're not learning."
-
And Calvin Coolidge said, "No man
ever listened his way out of a job."
-
(Laughter)
-
Why do we not listen to each other?
-
Number one, we'd rather talk.
-
When I'm talking, I'm in control.
-
I don't have to hear anything
I'm not interested in.
-
I'm the center of attention.
-
I can bolster my own identity.
-
But there's another reason:
-
We get distracted.
-
The average person talks
at about 225 word per minute,
-
but we can listen at up to
500 words per minute.
-
So our minds are filling in
those other 275 words.
-
And look, I know,
it takes effort and energy
-
to actually pay attention to someone,
-
but if you can't do that,
you're not in a conversation.
-
You're just two people shouting out
barely related sentences
-
in the same place.
-
(Laughter)
-
You have to listen to one another.
-
Stephen Covey said it very beautifully.
-
He said, "Most of us don't listen
with the intent to understand.
-
We listen with the intent to reply."
-
One more rule, number 10,
and it's this one: Be brief.
-
[A good conversation is like a miniskirt;
short enough to retain interest,
-
but long enough to cover
the subject. -- My Sister]
-
(Laughter)
-
(Applause)
-
All of this boils down to the same
basic concept, and it is this one:
-
Be interested in other people.
-
You know, I grew up
with a very famous grandfather,
-
and there was kind of a ritual in my home.
-
People would come over
to talk to my grandparents,
-
and after they would leave,
my mother would come over to us,
-
and she'd say, "Do you know who that was?
-
She was the runner-up to Miss America.
-
He was the mayor of Sacramento.
-
She won a Pulitzer Prize.
He's a Russian ballet dancer."
-
And I kind of grew up assuming
-
everyone has some hidden,
amazing thing about them.
-
And honestly, I think
it's what makes me a better host.
-
I keep my mouth shut
as often as I possibly can,
-
I keep my mind open,
-
and I'm always prepared to be amazed,
-
and I'm never disappointed.
-
You do the same thing.
-
Go out, talk to people,
-
listen to people,
-
and most importantly,
be prepared to be amazed.
-
Thanks.
-
(Applause)