221: Becoming a Great Conversationalist with Celeste Headlee

Pete Mockaitis
Celeste, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Celeste Headlee
My pleasure.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you’ve got a pretty cool background. I’d love to hear a little bit of the inside scoop when it comes to presidential election coverage for PBS World.

Celeste Headlee
Well, that was when PBS World was dipping its toe… PBS World focuses a lot on documentaries coming, not surprisingly, from all around the world. But one of the things they’ve discovered that as American politics is so much of interest to an international audience that they wanted to actually, yeah, have a reporter right there on the ground.
So that was sort of their toe in the water, and it worked out great. I mean it’s a busy schedule, as you can probably imagine, and you had a lot of conferences and conventions and all those kinds of things. But it’s exciting, and it was an exciting election. And especially when you’re focusing your coverage on the kinds of politics that are going to interest an international audience. To a certain extent it was nice because it allowed me to sort of stay out of that whole “rat race” mentality and onto more substantive issues. So that was really nice.

Pete Mockaitis
That is cool. And so, any noteworthy brushes with power brokers that come to mind, or fun anecdotes from there?

Celeste Headlee
Oh geez, you’re constantly rubbing by people. I mean, you don’t rub by former presidents because then you’d be rubbing by the Secret Service, but you certainly are constantly rubbing up against some of the biggest names – Donna Brazile and people that you see all the time who are now pundits when there’s not a presidential race going.
I think in terms of funny stuff, the main thing is just the line anytime they offer free food. I remember at one point when I was at the republican convention and I was walking through the convention hall and it’s gigantic. And I’m watching this line and just walking along it and walking along it, and I was like, “God, I don’t think this thing ever ends.” And I get to the front and it was a table of cupcakes. And I was like, “Really?” So, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
That is funny, that is funny. I guess it’s like, free food works in college and it just never stops working.

Celeste Headlee
Exactly. I guess it doesn’t matter how much you make or what business you’re in; in the end cupcakes are going to do well for you.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. Well, that seems like we already got our featured quote for social media from this chat in the first couple of minutes. That’s pretty good.

Celeste Headlee
Yeah. Well, good. I’m glad I’m quotable.

Pete Mockaitis
You are quotable and shareable. So, your TED Talk – 10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation – has racked up well over 10 or 11 million views. That’s extraordinary, it’s exceptional. Do you have any thoughts for what makes that kind of topic, that area so hot, so engaging and so shareable and popular?

Celeste Headlee
Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. I did not expect it to be popular, honestly. I thought it was a relatively boring subject that I was really excited about, but nobody else would be. And if I’d known 11 million people were going to watch it, I probably would have gotten my haircut and put on something other than an old blazer.
But I will say that it gives me hope, that that many people have watched it. And the reason I say that is because to me that’s a sign that people are aware that something is going wrong. And we’re not just talking about Americans, I mean it’s from all over the world. It’s been translated into dozens of languages, so I think there’s just a growing sense even if people can’t articulate it, that something is missing and that we need to get it back.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Well yeah, and I’m right with you there. I feel it, I believe it. And so you lay out 10 ways, which we will of course link to in the show notes. But if I could ask you to prioritize just a little bit from the “Not multitasking” to “Don’t pontificate” to using open-ended questions, etcetera – what do you think might be the one or two or three that you believe have a really extra bang for your buck, in terms of being effective for professionals in the workplace?

Celeste Headlee
The number one is listening – that’s probably no surprise. But the difficulty with that one is it’s also probably the hardest, because we are so far away from the type of people that really listen anymore. What we do know is that we tend to overestimate both our conversational skills and how well we listen. Yeah, but we don’t; we’re not great listeners. So that one requires a whole change in habits, and that’s going to take a little time before you truly become a good listener. But it’s the most important one.
One of the easiest is the very first one, which is “Be present”. And in that it means a couple things – “Don’t multitask” is the first one. But multitasking isn’t just being on a conference call while you’re trying to answer emails. Sometimes we multitask in our brains, right? Someone’s talking to us and all we’re thinking about is what time we have to get home in order to get dinner on the table and be able to watch Game of Thrones, or whatever it may be. So, “Don’t multitask” – what I’m really saying there is, “Focus.”
Focus in on the present moment, and when your mind does get distracted, because it will – that’s okay. Let those thoughts go in your head and out of your head – that’s part of the “Go with the flow” thing. And then focus back in. Each one of these things sort of supports the other, if you know what I mean. In order to be present and not multitask, you have to go with the flow, if you know what I mean. And by doing both of those things what you’re really doing is improving your listening. So, we’re just talking about sort of once you get through all 10, if you do, you’ll really be a great conversationalist.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright, that’s great. So, I’d love to dig into a little bit more detail here, when it comes to “Don’t multitask and go with the flow.” So, even in your brain – when other things pop in, what’s your recommended approach for… I’m talking to someone – maybe they’re just not that interesting, or maybe there’s something pressing happening outside in life that just has my attention. So, what are your pro tips for bringing about that focus in a great way?

Celeste Headlee
So that kind of conversation happens all the time at work, right? And I would suggest if you really are not able to focus, if there really is something pulling you away, I’d suggest you just say that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Celeste Headlee
Just say, “Hey listen, there’s some going on, I’m totally distracted by it. I apologize for that, I want to hear what you have to say, so let’s put a pin in this and come back to it later.” And I do that all the time, unless it’s absolutely urgent. And urgent conversations usually are not nuanced. And by that I mean when it’s urgent, it’s usually an exchange of information, right? So, nuanced conversations are the ones that you really need to take time with. Exchanges of information – get the information out or receive the information, and then go back to whatever it was you were doing.
If your mind is wandering because they’re boring you, that’s a totally different animal altogether. Usually what that means is that you’re more interested in what’s going on in your head than what it is that they’re saying. And you can fix that. That’s sort of a reflection of what scientists call “conversational narcissism”. And we all do it.
So, first of all, don’t be distressed by that – it’s something all of us do. But the second thing is, one of the only ways that we know of to fix that is through mindfulness training. And that’s by just basically training your mind to learn how to let stuff go. When thoughts come into your head, you should be able to say, “Oh, there’s a thought”, and then you just let it pass right back out and then return your focus to what the other person was saying.
And if they really are boring you, that’s where the one tip where it talks about questions comes in, because good questions can lead that person into a more engaging and interesting conversation. You’ve just got to ask them some questions. This is the thing I tell people all the time – everyone has really interesting stuff to tell you, right? I mean we’ve heard interviews even with famous people that were boring, whereas somebody else got really great material out of them, right? So, the reason for that is because someone asked them really good questions and someone didn’t.
And so if you want to get interesting stuff out of somebody, ask good questions. Show some interest in what they’re doing and find that thing that they really know better than anyone else, and then you’re going to have an interesting conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, excellent. So, I’m hearing when it comes to the mental multitasking, it’s just a matter of doing some of that training, when it comes to the mindfulness stuff. And so you’re saying it’s just as simple as engaging any number of meditation-type things where you focus on breath, or you notice, “Oh, there’s a thought” and you let it go. I’m thinking, do you write down these thoughts or you just allow them to go?

Celeste Headlee
I don’t usually. If I’m alone, I can, if they’re important. But I do find that the thoughts come back; they rise to the surface again. And then if they’re important I can get back to them. But by following your little rabbit down your rabbit hole, you’re getting further and further away from the conversation. The other person can’t follow you there.
So you’ve just got to kind of, as you say, whatever your mindfulness training is, and that usually involves some kind of meditation, which again – don’t be afraid of meditation. I’m not entirely sure why people always connect meditation with spirituality, but meditation is more like yoga – it’s a practice, and at this point it’s the only way that we know to train the brain to be mindful.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s potent. So, that covers sort of the multitasking phase. Is there more to be said about listening well?
Celeste Headlee
There is so much to be said about listening well. There is so much incredible work going on, but I will say this – that human beings are not really born knowing how to listen
So, anyone who’s had a kid or a baby knows that we come out of the room not ready to listen. We come into the world ready to scream, and that pretty much continues. We are much better at talking and talking about ourselves than we are at listening to other people. And in a way that should be a comfort to you, because it means all of us struggle with it.
The other thing that’s interesting, and it comes out of this research in Australia and New Zealand – what they found was that if you are trying to learn how to listen better, you aren’t going to do that through osmosis. You don’t learn to listen while you’re in history class, or anywhere else. You have to actually take a course in listening, and they have to tell you you are learning how to listen better, and then they teach you. And that’s the only way they’ve seen that needle move, in terms of how well people listen and pay attention, and most importantly, retain information.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, that is so intriguing. So, first of all, I want to know, how does one measure? When you say “Move the needle”, I’m envisioning a gauge, in terms of I have a dial or a dashboard, speedometer, same time of situation. Move the needle, so I’m imagining there’s a number or something. How do we measure one’s listening quality? Is that like a recall, percentage, or what are we syncing?

Celeste Headlee
It’s usually retention – how well you can… The Father of Listening – the guy that we call The Father of Listening, Ralph Nichols – started a lot of this research back in the 1950s, 60s, 70s. And he discovered that they would say to people in their various studies, “Okay, listen really carefully. Somebody’s going to talk to you for a few minutes. I want you to listen very carefully ‘cause then we’re going to quiz you.”
And what they discovered was even with them listening carefully, they could only retain about 50% of what they just heard. Within 48 to 72 hours, another 25% was gone, and after that it just basically disappeared. Yeah, and in business – think about how often we go to annual conventions or have annual staff meetings or something, and you say the exact same thing every year.

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Celeste Headlee
Right? Because it never actually quite makes it to our memory banks. So when I talk about listening, that’s the measure that they use, is how well did you hear, how well did you understand, right? It can’t be a game of telephone, where by the time you get to the end of the string, it’s not at all what the first person said. So there’s a couple of different measures, in terms of understanding and retaining, and they’ve been using those for decades. And that’s one of the things where I say, “Look, this isn’t a problem with the smartphone; this is just a human problem.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so fascinating. So if I were to take a course – and I kind of want to now, ‘cause I dig learning and I just get really sort of excited when you can measure progress on something, whether it’s strength training in the gym, or now you’ve introduced measures of listening capacity, which is exciting for me, just ‘cause that’s how I roll. So, if I were to take such a course – one, where would I find one? And two, what might be some of the sorts of exercises and practices I would do in it to improve my skills?

Celeste Headlee
I think that really depends on who’s teaching it. They do have workshops available; I do workshops sometimes, especially for companies, in order to help you listen better. And I can tell you that when I’m doing them, some of the most powerful things I do are improv exercises. Improv requires you to really work as a team, because improv is a “Yes, And” exercise; you can’t contradict what you just heard. And you also have to listen all the way to the end, or they may have mentioned a robbery that you didn’t pay attention to, and that changes the whole scene. So improv, anything that kind of gets you in the moment and really focused on another person is what’s really going to help you.
Some of the other things that you can do are things that are frankly often used for people with learning disabilities – learning how to co-talk, so repeating back words as someone’s literally saying them, which always makes people really uncomfortable. I make them stand within a couple of inches of somebody and just stare at their lips and try to say the words as they’re being spoken.

Pete Mockaitis
They try to say the words as they’re being spoken. I was just playing along with that.

Celeste Headlee
Yeah. And they can, eventually. But it makes people uncomfortable, and that’s okay. Discomfort is good, in a listening exercise. Comfortable people don’t learn, in case you didn’t notice.

Pete Mockaitis
Well said, well said. And so then you’re saying they can, eventually. So at first they’re struggling because there’s maybe a lag, in terms of two, three, four seconds behind what they’re saying, and then with practice they can do it sort of real time. Is that what you’re saying?

Celeste Headlee
Yeah, actually at first it’s usually because they’re laughing. They feel uncomfortable and they start laughing. But if they can get over that, then they can eventually do that. You know what’s interesting, is that one of the things I talk about is this incredible research out of Princeton, just from a couple of years back.
And what they did was they held this experiment where they had somebody sit down and tell an engaging story. In one instance it was a girl telling a story about a totally disastrous prom. And then they would have people come in and they hooked them all up to fMRI machines so they could watch their brain waves, and they had people come in and listen to that story. And what they discovered was that when people were listening and in engaged way, when they were actually focused, the brain waves of the listener and the speaker synced up.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh wow.

Celeste Headlee
They paralleled each other. And sometimes the sync was so strong that the listener’s brainwaves would anticipate changes in the speaker by a fraction of a second.

Pete Mockaitis
Whoa.
Celeste Headlee
Right? Now science calls this “neuro-coupling”; I call it mind meld, ‘cause I used to watch Star Trek.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh yeah.
Celeste Headlee
But either way, that’s amazing. That’s an incredible talent that human beings have, and as far as we know, no one else does. We just don’t tap into it.
Pete Mockaitis
Wow, so that sounds sci-fi or supernatural. It’s just really wild. And so then you’re saying that that is achievable for anyone who comes to master listening.

Celeste Headlee
That’s right. If you can listen in an engaged and active way, you are able to mind-meld with another person.

Pete Mockaitis
And so this predictive piece – are you saying that they just sort of know the next word or sentence that’s going to be spoken?

Celeste Headlee
I don’t know. l I have no idea. We haven’t gotten that far; I certainly haven’t. But it’s intriguing, isn’t it? We have no idea.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And so now, maybe we should make this all the more clear. So when it comes to listening, and most of us don’t do it very well, and it’s not so natural, and one benefit is futuristic sci-fi powers of prediction, another benefit is just retaining information for longer stretches. Could you lay out for us what are some other kind of compelling “Whys” behind why is it worth investing the time and energy to upgrade listening skills?

Celeste Headlee
So, think of it this way: Larry King once said, “I will learn nothing from anything I say today. I can only learn by listening to other people.” And that’s literally the truth. So, if you actually go about, if you enter in your conversations with the intention of learning from the people that you’re talking to, and then you make it a practice to talk to a ton of people, think how genius you’ll be. [laugh] Right? You will be so knowledgeable. I mean that’s worth it.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good, that’s good. I’ll take the Larry King quote; that’s great. Alright, well, this is a lot of fun and so we could talk at length just about your 10 ways to have a better conversation, but I want to make sure we also get to give some love to your book, recently released – We Need to Talk. Could you share with us what’s the big idea behind that, and in what ways is it similar to, versus distinctive from, the content you cover in your TED Talk?

Celeste Headlee
So, the book is basically a 60,000-word version of the TED Talk, which means that if you watch the TED talk but you still kind of struggle to carry out some of the stuff, which is what I’ve heard from so many people, the book is going to tell you exactly what to do. It’s going to give you the science behind it so you can understand why I say those things, and it also…
I’m not standing in a superior position, telling people how to behave, because I’m so good at it. I am very honest in there about the mistakes that I’ve made, the things that I screwed up, and how that led me to some epiphanies as well. So, the book is designed to be the kind of book that you can return to. When a conversation goes badly, you should be able to go back to this book and say, “Okay, what happened?” Or if you are anticipating an important conversation, whether that be asking for a raise or pitching a project or whatever it may be, you should be also able to go to this book and prepare yourself well for it.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that is great. And so, I want to talk about a couple of those points, when it comes to preparing for intense conversations or asking for a raise or high stakes matters. What are some of the core principles and practices to follow?

Celeste Headlee
So, one of the most important is actually not in the TED Talk. It’s one that I was able to address in the book, which is making sure that you have set the stage for success. So if you are trying to pitch something to someone or you’re having a difficult conversation, do it at a time when they’re most likely to be in a good mood and receptive. You don’t have a conversation about something difficult with your spouse when they come home from work and they’re exhausted. That’s a recipe for disaster, and that’s the same thing with your boss or an employee.
Watch them for a couple of days and see when they are at their best – is it first thing in the morning, is it right if they’ve had coffee, when is that? And then set them up for that; be in a comfortable, warm situation if you can, in terms of a place. Maybe if your office is… I have found that coming into my office sometimes intimidates my employees, so I sometimes go to new neutral third ground, if I don’t want them to be scared.
So, a lot of what you can do is in how you manage the expectations. And one of the third things I tell people is, don’t leave people in suspense. People become anxious when they’re worried about what you’re going to say. So for example, I had an employee that I needed to reprimand last year, and he came in and he sat down and I said, “Listen, this is a reprimand, but you are not in any way, shape or form fired. This isn’t a pathway to firing you. All that I’m intending to do is figure out a plan to get you back on track.” And you could see him relax.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great.

Celeste Headlee
Yeah, we ended up able to actually have a real conversation, which he listened to me, rather than been sitting there terrified that he was about to lose his job if he said the wrong thing.

Pete Mockaitis
And I think it’s just so powerful as well, when you can just name it and just vocalize what someone else is thinking, feeling, experiencing. I remember one time on the opposite side of things – it was wild. There was just sort of a very odd fellow who tried to sell me many copies of his self-published books. And I just bumped into him at a Subway or a restaurant, and he said, “Hey, could you give me some feedback on this book?”, and just slopped it on my table there.
And I was like, “Well, I’ve been there before, needing feedback on books. Sure, I’ll tell you just what I think. How come I can’t see a title on the spine?” And all these things. And then he’s like, “Oh.” So then he became very fascinated with me, and I kind of wanted to be done with our conversation after about three minutes, and he did not. But it was amazing how he just sort of keyed in on what I was feeling. He was like, “It seems as though each sentence I say causes a greater degree of concern for you.” I was like, “Yeah, it really does.”

Celeste Headlee
“Glad you picked up on that.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, but it didn’t stop him from going.

Celeste Headlee
Yeah, I probably would’ve cut him off.

Pete Mockaitis
But it’s fascinating how sure enough, him just sort of naming it caused me to kind of get sucked in a little bit farther, in terms of being engaged and intrigued by, “What is up with this guy?” And he seems to be picking up on some stuff. And so, whether it sort of calms or inflames, I think that there is just something potent about sort of specifying exactly where someone is and what they’re experience is, and it just sort of can change the stage in a hurry.

Celeste Headlee
Absolutely. And every single thing that I put in the book are things that I tried out. When I first started researching this years ago, I went to all those books and sources that gave us information on better conversation and I tried that stuff out too, and that’s why I know it doesn’t work.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you tell us something that does not work?

Celeste Headlee
Yeah, that whole “Maintain eye contact and nod your head and say ‘A-ha’ to show that you’re paying attention.” It’s just crap; I mean that does not work at all. Eye contact is a powerful thing, but you can’t force it. And nodding and saying “A-ha” is just you learning how to pretend you’re paying attention, instead of actually paying attention. None of those things create an authentic, better conversation for me. So that’s the benefit of being in a studio every morning, where I’m speaking to a number of people all the time, is I can really test this stuff, and that’s how I know the advice we’ve been getting is just not good.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s excellent, thank you. Well, I also want to make sure we get into some of your wisdom when it comes to keeping it short. We had a guest, Joe McCormack, on episode 171 – he wrote the book Brief. And that was a great conversation, and so I would love your perspective. How can we do a better job of keeping it brief, and why is that important?

Celeste Headlee
Well, the first thing that’s important is ‘cause we all know our attention span is shrinking, right? At this point Microsoft went around the Internet; Microsoft has measured that our attention span is one second shorter than that of a goldfish. So, why swim upstream? If someone is going to have a hard time paying attention to you and maintaining attention, keep it short so that they hear everything that you say – that’s the first thing.
If you tend to run on and on and on, you are not going to maintain their attention, so it’s a waste of your time. The other thing in terms of keeping it brief is that the brain can only hold on to one or two significant thoughts at any one time. So you don’t want to go and talk to somebody and just release a litany of things. You want to choose one or two things, emphasize them and then get out.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, understood. And so then when it comes to doing that well, we say, “Oh, but how could I say one or two things? I have so many things.” What’s the formula or approach to help get that whittled down?

Celeste Headlee
I’m not sure there’s a formula, other than just… Probably your first step is to look at a timer and start talking and start to become aware of how long you’re talking.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Celeste Headlee
You know what I mean? Because I don’t think most people realize how long a minute is, and so you may not even be aware of that. And also I don’t think people are often totally aware of how many times they go off on a tangent in one thing. A lot of people complain about someone running on and on and on. I bet those people who run on and on and on don’t realize they’re doing it. So, that’s probably your first step, is just to become aware. And if you have somebody that you talk to regularly, maybe you could have them be your helper in this and say, “If I do that, tap me on the shoulder, and I can stop.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s good. Well, so tell me, Celeste – is there anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Celeste Headlee
Another thing I want to mention – last thing I’d want to say is that your cell phone is not your friend. And your smartphone is, to the best of our knowledge at this point, possibly changing your brain. It is distracted by that phone all the time, it is making the other person… There’s research showing that just having the phone sitting on a table at lunch makes the other person see you as less trustworthy, less empathetic.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s hear that again. So if they see my phone at the table where we’re eating lunch, they think I’m less trustworthy and empathetic.

Celeste Headlee
Yeah, the way that the research went is that they had strangers talk to each other, and then in half of those situations they walked in a set a cell phone down on the table. And it belongs to neither of the people and it never made noise, but when they came out those people who were speaking with a cell phone present said the other person was less empathetic and less trustworthy, less friendly. So, we feel good because we don’t pick up the phone and look at it, but in fact the mere presence of it is not just distracting you, it’s distracting the other person in a negative way. So put it away.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow. So I’m thinking the cell phone… Because sometimes I take it out of my pocket. This is hitting close to home, Celeste.

Celeste Headlee
I’m sorry.

Pete Mockaitis
Sometimes I’ll take my cell phone out of my pocket and just set it down, face down on the table, silent, so it’s out of my pocket and I’m just more comfortably seated, with my legs and the furniture, and the keys and wallet, whatever. So, I’m more comfortably seated, but you’re saying just the presence of the phone – no beeping, no buzzing, no lighting up – in and of itself is creating negative associations?

Celeste Headlee
That is correct, so you have to put it away.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Celeste Headlee
Sorry, I wish I had better news for you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m glad I learned this from you, rather than the person I’m eating lunch with who thinks I’m not good.

Celeste Headlee
Yeah, and they won’t know why, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, I’m so glad you brought that up. Well, anything else you want to make sure… So you were saying the phone is not our friend; it’s causing some trouble. And where were we headed with that?

Celeste Headlee
We have to stop, we’ve got to reverse that trend. You don’t have to get rid of your smartphone; it’s very useful. But what you have to do is start reclaiming the human tasks from the smartphone. And communication is an inherently human task, so stop using email and texting and emojis to do your communication for you, and instead pick up the phone.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright, that’s good. Well, Celeste, now I’d love to hear some of your favorite things. Could you start us off by sharing a favorite quote, something that you find inspiring?

Celeste Headlee
So I’m a Buddhist, so one of my favorite quotes is from the Dalai Lama, who said, “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” And he also said, “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good, thank you. And how about a favorite book?

Celeste Headlee
That one is really difficult, but I would say probably anything by Charles Dickens. And in fact some of the best reading, one of the books I’ve read the most over the course of my life, was A Tale of Two Cities, which I really like and I think is actually really relevant to the situation that we find ourselves in today, and it’s not quite as depressing as Bleak House for example.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And how about a favorite tool?

Celeste Headlee
My favorite tool is my Fitbit.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Celeste Headlee
Yeah, it would have to be my Fitbit because it reminds me when I’ve been sitting at my computer for too long, and it tells me to get up.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite habit?

Celeste Headlee
My favorite habit is waking up in the morning and doing my exercise first thing at like 5:00 or 5:30 a.m. That just sets me up for success in the day.

Pete Mockaitis
And what is the exercise of choice?

Celeste Headlee
It’s a combination of circuit training and cardio. I switch them out.

Pete Mockaitis
So there’s a gym full of machinery that you’re doing sort of resistance training?

Celeste Headlee
Right, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
If you’re up at that hour, when do you go to bed and are you getting enough sleep, Celeste? I’m concerned.

Celeste Headlee
I’m getting lots of sleep.

Pete Mockaitis
Good, good.

Celeste Headlee
I do have a sleep tracker as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s good. On top of the Fitbit, or integrated into the Fitbit?

Celeste Headlee
No, on top of the Fitbit.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell us about that.

Celeste Headlee
I am all for using technology for things I can’t do. I just don’t want you to use technology for things you do better. So yeah, I go to sleep, I’m in bed by like 9:00 or 9:30.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, solid. So now I need to know, what’s the sleep tracker and should I buy it? What’s the story with it? It does better than my Fitbit can do?

Celeste Headlee
Oh yeah. I use an S+ ResMed, and it is fantastic.

Pete Mockaitis
It sounds medical. What does this mean?

Celeste Headlee
It is. In fact, that’s the same company that makes the devices for when you have trouble at night. So, it is a medical company that makes it. It is remarkably accurate and it gives you in the morning little tips. It says, “You had trouble getting to sleep last night. It could be because the light level in your room was at this level, or it could be that there was too much sound in your room, ‘cause we tracked this.” Yeah, it’s very helpful.

Pete Mockaitis
So, let’s spell that out. Can I buy this on Amazon? Do I need to see a physician?

Celeste Headlee
I did buy it on Amazon.

Pete Mockaitis
S+ ResMed. Oh, my personal sleep solution for just $45 or so.

Celeste Headlee
It’s a fantastic machine.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Oh, Celeste, this is so funny. Sleep is a personal passion of mine, and the listeners may have intuited that the two longest episodes of them all were me grilling sleep doctors, and they were great, the sleep doctors.

Celeste Headlee
Yeah, highly recommended.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good. Well, I’m buying one, thank you. Okay, perfect. And is there a particular nugget, something that you share in your speaking, in your writing or your working with teammates that really seems to connect and resonate with them?

Celeste Headlee
So here’s the last little tidbit I’ll share, and this is in the book as well. One of the most powerful things you can do to start being more aware of how good you are in conversation is, make a list of the five things that other people do in conversation that you hate, the things that just bug you the most. Then take that list without telling people what it is, but asking for their complete honesty. Take it to them and say, “Okay, how many of these things do I do?”

Pete Mockaitis
Alright.

Celeste Headlee
And that might be a little bit of a shock to some people, because you will often find the things that bother you the most are the things that you are doing to other people. But it is a really good eye opener.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, excellent. Well, Celeste, tell me – if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Celeste Headlee
Well, they can certainly go to my website, CelesteHeadlee.com. At this point the best thing you could possibly do is buy the book.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, perfect. And the book is called We Need to Talk, and it is available for purchase right here, right now, wherever books are sold. Anything we should add about that?

Celeste Headlee
No.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, perfect. And any sort of final challenge or call to action? Get the book, and is there more?

Celeste Headlee
Get the book. No, and start talking. Start having small talk with your Uber driver and your barista.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, perfect. Well, Celeste, this has been a whole lot of fun. I definitely learned some things and I’m sure listeners did as well. So, I wish you tons of luck, with big sales for We Need to Talk, and all the stuff that you’re up to!

Celeste Headlee
Thank you, I really appreciate it. It was good to talk to you.