What Supercommunicators Know That We Don't

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When you're looking at mastering effective communication, there are three different fundamental types of conversations that occur in every interaction, right and the biggest chance of miscommunication is when one person thinks they're having one type of conversation and someone else thinks they're having another. As I was prepping for the show and reading about this, I was having a text argument with someone. It was a man, and he thought we were having a.

Practical, practical conversation and emotional conversation.

And then I realized in the course of the conversation that I was having an emotional conversation about how I feel.

Hello, and welcome to Mom and Mia out Loud and to our Friday show, where you know, we don't do news. We just do talking. Nothing from the outside is breaking into our bubble. Today is also a public holiday, of course, it's an Zac Day, but we thought we would do an episode for you anyway, because you might have been up since really early at the dawn service. You might be baking anzac Vicki's. You might just be going to the beach, but yeah, what you deserved them.

You might have the day off. There are some hard working out ladders who are working today a lot.

But anyway, we digress.

I'm Holly wayIn right, I'm Mere Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens.

And on today's show, when was the last time you cried in front of someone else? And would you tell a complete stranger the answer to that question? Welcome to the list of magic questions, which are shortcuts to connection, plus one of the twenty five lip products in my handbag, a book and an article about a cosmetic procedure you've likely never heard of, its recommendations, and our best and worst, which include camping, nicoles, a family sick fest, and Nana singing.

Case you missed it, being polite to your chat GPT bot could be doing some damage to the world. This is confusing news for everyone who uses phrases like please and thank you when they talk to an AI tool like chat GPT. I do I always say please.

Me too, I'm told to do it.

I don't really say thank you. But what it does is that it increases the amount of energy required to process whatever you've asked the chatbot to do. That's what Sam Altman, who is the boss of Open Ai, has said this week when someone asked him about the electricity that powers AI and all the energy required, and he said that politeness increases costs for his company by tens

So just about extra words or is it about those words? In particular?

It's about extra words and phrases, and it has to be polite back to you. Now, there are two reasons why people tend to use thank you and please if they do. The first is ethically because it's a robot, but maybe we don't want to be mean to the robots. And the second is just in case the robots take over, we want to, you know, fitting good with them.

Reason I would say is that it is about setting a precedent if you get into the habit of barking orders, which I have found with my Siri, with my like all of the things that I tell to do things. And I think, firstly, I don't want my daughter just hearing me yell orders at things all the time. And secondly, if I speak to something that is serving me like that, yeah, then how long until it bleeds into the workplace where you know your boss is speaking to the assistant with the same level of.

Oh, you talk to someone in the service industry.

Exactly, real human without a please and think.

But then I was also told, and maybe this isn't true, but when we have had a training and things is that if you're polite to it, it will be polite to you, which is the same aunt in the world, right karma. You put out what you want to get back, and so I don't want my robot to shout at me no.

But it takes more energy, so it uses up more energy and the cost of energy. Obviously, the energy required to process all of the AI queries is powered by electricity, which.

And Holly, you're onto something, because there actually was a study that found they had people all across the world because manners are very different in different countries, there are different versions of please and thank you, and they found that you got thirty percent worse results without manners. So you're on chat GPT whatever it is. They will omit information. Sometimes there are errors, like apparently you get better results if you speak.

That's finally what chat GPT told me. I did some research this morning and it said it will not affect the quality. It does talk back to you. However, you talk to it so like I've trained mine that it'll just be I'll be like, thanks, that's an awesome answer. Could you try doing it with a little bit more brevity or in bullet points, and then it'll go thanks so much for your detailed feedback. That's amazing, And it's like,

So res Altman suggesting that we should stop saying please and thank you, because he's like, if you're worried about the environmental impacts of AI, then the way to deal with it is short and to the point.

Not really, he was more tongue in cheek. It's costing us a lot of money more, but it's worth it if it means that the world is being populated by better manners. I will bear that cost.

This is the most Silicon Valley, just telling us that it's less efficient to be polite. That's where Silicon Valley leads us.

I like MEA's theory that we're playing the long game and we have to be nice to our future over lords.

Like they're keeping a list somewhere.

They'd be like me is the one who.

Always says that thanks, great job. She complimented my outfit.

How do I become a super communicator? You know those people who can talk to just about anyone about anything, and not just small talk. They find themselves in deep, interesting conversations with strangers. Apparently there is a name for these people, and they are super communicators, and any of us can become one with the right training. A new podcast by Charles Dowig called super Communicators explores the science of connection and offers very practical advice on how to

The next time you're on an airplane or on a bus, or you're at a party, or you're making small talk with someone, turn to them and ask them a deep question. And you might think to yourself, this is going to

Central to this is something called magical questions. They have been studied and determined by psychologists to increase intimacy between two people. And at the most basic level, it means that you meet someone right and you just have a chat and they go, I'm a teacher.

Now.

The logical next question for a lot of people would be what school, what year, what long have you been how long have you been a teacher? Exactly? And we know that they're like more close questions, and the advice here is that your next question should be why what made you go into teaching?

I would feel like that was had some judgement, me too, why a teacher?

Yes? Why would you ever? Because I wanted to be What why questions prompt people to talk about their values, beliefs, or experiences, which brings us to the thirty six questions that lead to love? Do you to remember this essay?

Question on the plane?

Why questions? Open ended? Why are we so reluctant to ask why questions?

Because they're no scense. It's so funny because I actually I love this because small talk is exhausting, right, and I hate it, and I'd much rather have a proper conversation with somebody in a social situation. But if somebody turned round to me on an airplane and said to me, how do you really feel about your relationship with your mother? I would probably push them out of the door.

Well, that's why the way that it's designed, these thirty six questions is progressive exactly. So it starts don't start back. One of the early ones is dinner party, alive or dead? Who comes like something? That's a bit of a game. And then as it goes on you kind of.

Because once you start really telling the truth, because small talk is basically like armor for us all to wear, right where we can all rob up near each other in social situations, but we're not giving any vulnerability and no one has to give any back. We're just all

Thank you.

Because you have to earn this y the right to have somebody's vulnerability, And interviewers know this. Right when you're interviewing someone, you have to get there quite quickly, but at least you're already engaged in a contract, which is like I'm going to ask you things that I wouldn't ask you if I make you on a plane. M You know what I mean.

I think as well, central to that is the mutual self disclosure. So I think you would get a totally different result if we sat down and I said, may Or, I'm going to ask you thirty six questions in a row, and then I went, it would be a totally interview. Well that's an interview rather than having two people go all right, we're entering into a contract where we're going to maybe share things we would not ordinarily.

It's so funny when you sent me this podcast to listen to, because Jason, my husband, has always described me as a super communicator, and I'd never heard the expression other than him using it to describe me. I mean, I kind of understood what he meant. Obviously, he's someone who doesn't like talking very much. He's deeply introverted, and I wouldn't say that I'm extroverted. But this whole thing, I kept waiting for the aha moment in it, but

I think that's what they're trying to say in this podcast, but also that there are some people where this does come naturally, and for those of us who maybe it doesn't come as naturally and we're a little bit more shy or reticent to open up a conversation, sometimes we look at people like you and go, what are the mechanics behind that? How do yousel?

Closure is important in the early reviews for No Filter, people would always say, Oh, she talks too much about herself about me, And that's very deliberate because the way you get someone to trust you and the way you make them feel like it's more of a conversation and less of an interrogation is by being vulnerable first. And so I would do that, and what we learned is to actually just cut out my bits because no one needs to hear my stories. But it works very well.

So it also can be a good deflection though, because if I'm in a small talk situation and I was just away on a trip where every day I had to sit next to, like not even every day, every meal time set next people I didn't know, I don't really want to talk about myself in those situations. So getting other people to talk about themselves is the key, which is a little unfair and a little unbalanced, but people love talking about themselves. Once you get them going on something, they're passionate.

Yeah, for me, it's an energy conserving tool as well. In a social situation, it's an energy conserving tool because most people really do like talking about themselves. You're life hole, and it means that I can deflect. I once went to dinner with two women who are a couple, and I was quite friends with them, and a little way in they'd obviously been talking about me, because they went, no, that's enough questions for us. We want to ask you how you're going.

I always hate that.

Yeah, when I'm like, oh, okay, well, clearly I've gone into interviewer mode, which I do when I'm tired or you know, feeling like talking.

The second episode had a bunch of stuff about nonverbal communication, which you know we talked about a lot, but it was it was really specific. So apparently like confidence can be read by the distance between your ear lobes and your shoulders. That was a big one. What do you mean so posture? That's why posture is seen as really important, Like when someone stands up straight like they can often make you feel a lot more at ease, that sort

Bloody, language is really important, so you should never cross your arms, always, never have your energy blocked. You will instinctively do that as a way to sort of protect yourself without even realizing it. The ideal thing is for someone to show the inside of their wrists. If you can find a way to show the inside of your wrists and your palms, that's very disarmy.

Like dong rolling on their back.

Correct. And the other way to really show someone that you're listening is to tilt your head a dog. Yeah, like a dog. You just go like that and raise your eyebrows.

The raising eyebrows it's called an eyebrow flash. You're not meant to do it too often, but it says like I'm interested in compelled by what you're saying. But I was thinking about the impact of injectibles, and our face is not moving like maybe they once if you can't actually move your eyebrows or even like what do they call it when you're like replicating or mirroring the expressions of the person you're talking to.

Yeah, you know, as part of this book Charles Doig is really interesting, and he said, when you're looking at mastering effective communication, there are three different fundamental types of conversations that occur in every interaction, right, And the biggest chance of miscommunication is when one person thinks they're having one type of conversation and someone else thinks they're having another. So the three types of practical conversations, which is, you know,

A practical, a practical conversation, an emotional conversation, and he was.

Very confused by the enormity of my responses to something that seemed really practical. And then I realized in the course of the conversation that I was having an emotional conversation about how I feel. And I think that happens a lot. I know it happens a lot with me. When I'm talking to men, including my sons, I'm always having an emotional conversation, but they, in most cases think that they're having a practical conversation.

So when was the last time he cried in front of someone else? Jesse Stevens.

The last time I cried in front of someone else was in in public cry. I cried in public, which is always the worst. You know, things the wheels are falling off. Oh yeah, when I was at a medical center because Luna had hurt herself and she would not stop crying, and I just broke down and the woman at reception was so so lovely. Luca walked in, he'd been at work and came to get us. He went to Luna, and then the woman at reception said, I think your wife needs a cuddle.

Oh, And then that made me cry more, and I just I got a mask because I went maybe if I wear the mask high enough, no one will see the tears under the mask.

But that was not my finest moment. When was the last time you cried?

You know?

I have tried very hard to never cry in front of other people, even Brent, I hate it. I like to cry by myself. That's my preferred crying situation. But I did cry, yeah, in front of Brent. He's probably the only person who sees me cry very much. And it was one of those frustrated It was about tax. Of course, Tax makes me cry, just like I feel so overwhelmed by all this and why aren't you helping me with it? And he's like, I can't. It was one of those conversations which was not Again, he probably

But you don't understand.

I'm sorry overwhelmed and.

Tax is never not emotional.

Maya.

I went through a long period of crying a lot, including at work when I was really overwhelmed, really frustrated, which is there's just nothing worse than crying in a work situation because women will often cry in those situations because they're frustrated or they're frustrated with themselves or whatever it is. And that was the case with me. I was just annoyed at myself. But that was a long time ago. I haven't cried at work for ages, not for years, but it would have been with Jason he's

You know. The thing that I love the most about this is that with talk and the election and politics and vision and all that kind of stuff, the idea that there are so many other things to talk about, yeah, and so many other things that are actually connective to you that we ignore that we can find in other people, and that there's a lot of whether it's surface or not, but there are ways to have enriching and meaningful conversations with literally anyone.

Yeah.

Can I ask you if our out loud as are going to a long weeken barbecue, what do you reckon? Are three of these magic questions that aren't necessarily like the really deep show me all your insides, Yeah, but are really good ones from the list for that kind of situation.

This one, and I remember reading something about it. Someone clever has said it before, which is some version of what are you most passionate about? What are you passionate about? What are you interested in at the moment? Something like that.

I know Elizabeth Gilbert, that's what she asked, because you can imagine meeting someone like that, they're constantly people wanting to talk to them. And it was a very good deflecting conversation. She said, what are you excited about right now? I thought that was great because in terms of passionate, that can almost be a bit of pressure, like, oh god, I'm.

What are you excited about?

What are you excited about right now? And immediately I could tell her. I told her about this book that I was, you know, in the middle of writing, and she ended up endorsing that book. It was such a clever question because I could tell she didn't want to talk, but it was a generous question, and you know, I thought it was really it was a good one, what are you excited about right now? Also, I just always ask what should I watch next?

Yeah, that's good small talk if you're.

Reaching for something. I know that small talk. It's not a particularly deep question, but it can. The key I think is follow up questions. When you're talking to someone, you've just got to listen to what they're saying and look for the openings in what they're saying. That are the tangents out loud.

As in a moment. It's stuff to read and stuff to smear on your mouth. Come back for our recommendations, vibes, ideas, atmosphere, something usual file.

This is my best recommendation. Good.

Look, it's Friday, so of course you want to help me set up your weekend. Who wants to go first? You two have been away, You've probably got someone. Yes.

I actually I've brilliant one.

I have such a good one.

I have a book and I had heard so many people recommend this book. But it is historical fiction, and I thought it sounded like hard work, and I was like, I want to relax. It just delivered everything that I possibly wanted, and every review is spot on. It is a book called The Safe Keep by yah Elle vander Odin. It was nominated, I think it was long listed for

I'm going to jump in because I've got a silly one, whereas I think is a smart too, because it's just a lipstick, you know how, maybe.

Not all from lipsticks are very important.

We were recently recording our Apple Show. Do you remember we were before our Apple Show recently? Emilia Lester was there and she just said to me, Holly showed me all the lip products in your bag.

You know how much at open questions, Flia is such she should write the thirty six questions for hollywaen I fall in love with you and the first question is I think that's.

Maybe why shee I fell in love so fast as friends.

Because I do always have twenty five lip products in my bag at any one time. And today or yesterday, I was clearing out my bag and I realized the most used because it's the one I have to replace the most often. And I was like, I should just recommend that it's a bit basic, but hey, and it is. Nas it's like a lip bar, it's a bag, it's a barm so it's like shiny shear.

Okay, it's sheer, but it's pigmented.

It's pigmented, but just a little bit. But the good thing about it is because it's called afterglow Right. The shade I was called Dolceavida and it's forty six dollars, which is a lot of money. But the thing that is great about it and I have used many times, is because it's so popular at Dubecity. Soh m COD do a version very similar, even in the same square thing because the thing I love about the square thing it's easy to find in my bag with all the other lip products.

And also don't pull out a tampon misteak, you.

Just reach for the square one. Mco Dupe one is eleven bucks and they've got the same shade, what's very similar shade.

I've used that dole. They're brilliant and they're really good if you don't want to look like you've got a full on lipy, like if you want something to.

Like it, it's a little bit done but not color yeap. And the other thing is if you don't have like just a lip balm and your lips are feeling dry, it's like that in between and then in between the MC and the nas Mecha Dooo one too. It's about thirty bucks, and so they're like a lip balm with a bit of tint that I realize I use down to the absolute stop all the.

You know what, I'm just going to throw in an extra one. This is a product that I use every single day that I just every now and then go, this is a great products. Lana Lips Lips with a little bit of pigment. Single day I put that on my lip and it just I never get chapped and it's just so good love.

Okay, maya take this away.

I always get really excited about recommending a book or a TV show, and then I realized that my record are just whatever you guys have recommended. But like a month later, so I've had to dig deep and I actually I'm going to recommend an article I read on

Wait, so it's an elective. Women in Australia can choose to get their legs lengthened taller.

So it's a surgery that was originally I guess created or pioneered for people who had defects in their legs or needed to be taller for you know, I guess health reasons, or had made like.

A discrepancy and they're left in their right because that can cause heaps.

Of issues, exactly right. And so now in the same way that a lot of things that are now used esthetically were originally used for medical reasons, so it is with leg lengthening surgery. So what happens is they basically break your legs. They break both of your legs, They put them in cages, and then there are like magnets in the bone and they keep stretching them like by a millimeter.

Every stay because you would need something the bone.

So what it does is that it's like your bone thinks I learned this in the article. Your bone thinks it's been fractured, so it rushes to repair it, and it like builds new bone around so it's taller. You can get a few centimeters. It's really disturbing just where so in America a lot of men are doing it. You know, short kings. Not everybody can marry a cock edman. Some short kings just want to be taller, and so a lot of men used to get it. I read a really long piece in GQ about it many years ago,

Want unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mum and MEA subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes to get us in your ears five days a week. And a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.

It's time for best and Worst, the peaks the troughs of our lives. Holly, you go first, what's your worst of the week?

So regular outlouders well know, and as you certainly do that every Easter I go camping with my original Mothers group, so much so that I have written a book inspired by.

That weekend I went. It's good weather for Hollies camp. It was because sometimes it's miserable.

Oh Easter weekend was glorious. So it's my best and my worst. But the worst was the fact that it's making an appearance of my worst is actually sparked by an out louder's post this week, which made me realize a cold hard truth about myself. Right, so, an out louder called Rose May Foster posted in the out Louder's Facebook gred, this was so good that she is in the coal and she is going camping for the first time with a group of families, just like I do.

She right.

Then it comes to have we got enough eggs? She means Easter eggs? Yes, is the collective reply. But a nicole knows to dig deeper, says Rose. Person one has big eggs, Person two has small eggs. Person three has little kinder bunnies. Yes, there's enough chocolate to feed all the kids, but do they all have the same or will there be tears? Am I the only one who thinks that the kids will crack it if the bunny brings visibly different things for different kids. Don't even get

Like, I'm losing my mind.

She was on your trip. She has could have been my friend.

Yeah.

I haven't had to buy Easter eggs for children for some time now, and I've been alarmed to see these new trend of Easter baskets all over social media, and people making Easter baskets almost like a Christmas stocking filled with presents.

Yeah, sometimes we don't do any of that. But what this post made me realize is I am always the person who goes, don't worry about it, right, I'm always the person We've got loads of chocolate, don't even worry about it. I haven't even thought about it. And then I get there and go, oh, that's right. This nicole hates me, like, not me personally, but all I represent in the world, which is like she'll be long had

Also, you could use it as an opportunity to teach resilience.

Well you could, And that's the way I look at it.

Me capitalism.

If my kid doesn't get the Easter egg of their dreams, deal with its sister anyway. So my worst realization that I am indeed a terrible friend in and the bane of all nicholes everywhere. But my best was the Easter camping because although I always moan about it, and we did indeed end up, I moan about the labor involved. We did end up sleeping on the floor because the

How many kids are they now?

There would be like fifteen kids, oh wow, maybe more. And the thing is is, you know that girls grow first, So the last few years the girls have been quite grown up and the boys haven't. And then this year all the boys are like six foot and they've.

All got shoulders, like, oh wow, we're actually camping. We just a whole lot of people, but we still had to do an egg hunt, they still had to be even though they were like, we didn't need ag hunt.

Then on Easter Sunder, they were all.

Like, where where's the egg hut?

And because Brent had gone off camping first without me because I was doing something else, and I met him there, obviously he hadn't remembered any of the eggs, so I had to do an early morning supermarket Easter bunny swoop on Sunday. Anyway, it was the best of times, the worst of times, and I loved it, and that was my used to camp.

My worst was we went on holiday last week with the in laws with.

Two together ye.

Generations, that's what we were. It was delightful. But the day that we actually got there, Luna got sick, right, so she was sick, and then I think she managed to make everyone sick. There was tonsladis going around And I said, nearly every day, I said, I've actually never felt so well.

You said that, I know, well.

I wanted to touch wood, I wanted to go spit on the ground.

YEP, I said, I am feeling because you know, you keep checking in, you go nap. Never felt better. I'm feeling really healthy. My throat is top notch.

And she needed to say this a lot because in the past she's been patient zero that has infected the wide effect.

And I needed everyone to know that I wasn't patient zero. Luna was taken up with her anyway. I keep going feeling great, looking great, just like I'm active lively. She said, never ever better, You ever felt better. And then on the Monday night, I went to bed, slept like a dream because I was feeling so well, and then at one am woke up and went, oh, And that's when

I got so much.

Sleep, Like Luna would get up early, hang out with Nana. Nana loves the morning with Luna, make her some wheat bits, and it was just delightful to spend time with everyone. So it was very restorative.

My worst is that I like to sing you did it for your hsc apparently who told you that? And anyway, the other day, Luna was in the bath and she was grizzling about something and I just started to sing because I thought that'll calm her down. In the past, when she was little, I can't remember, there's a particular sort of hymn that I used to sing her, or like a folk song, I don't even know what you'd.

Call it, but she quite liked that when she was when.

She was a tiny baby, well.

Actually we don't know if she liked it.

Before she could speak, she didn't protest anyway. I started singing and she just looked at me and said, Nana sing all done? And I thought someone's been getting in your ear. They someone has polluted the pure waters of my granddaughter.

Did you all done?

Or did you persist? She gave another crack.

I tried my best. Obviously, being away with the family, it was great touch what I did not get sick. But I have started seriously weight training, so you know my hyperfixations. I have just realized because I was I think I've said before, I was got my weighted vest I've been lifting. Then I realized I've been lifting weights that are way too light. I need to really level up a lot. And so now I have and tell you more about it.

Full of bar bells and kettle bells and stuff.

Now, yes, well, because I've got there's men in my house, so you know, they get used by a lot of people.

And how much are we lifting so much?

I don't want to disclose it because I don't want to intimidate anybody who's listening. No, I'm still pretty pathetic, But what I'm really enjoying is because I've just sort of done the same form of exercise for so many years. I like to sort of set and forget the same way I do with my lunches or my breakfasts. I never feel anything from it. I don't get very tired. I never feel any muscle anything because I never ever

I recently that weight training is better for your brain.

THANKU. And I was like, that's good. I don't like doku. Yeah, got to get me else.

I love it.

Came up, do it.

That's all We've got time for friends. Thank you for being with us here on this short week. A massive thank you for all of you who are listening to today's show, Jesse and Mia, please thank how Marvel's team.

I think, thank you to our team group executive producer Ruth Divine, executive producer Emmeline Gazillis, our audio producer Leah Poor Jess.

Our video producer Josh Green, and our junior content producers Coco and Tessa. We will see you all in your ears will We'll be back in your ears on Monday. Well well, Hi. Shout out to any Muma Miya subscribers listening. If you love the show and want to support us as well, subscribing to mom and Miya is the very best way to do so. There is a link in the episode descriptions