How to talk so people will listen (w/ Julian Treasure)
How to Be a Better Human
TED
4.2 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 22 September 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What’s more important in communication— the content or the delivery? Julian Treasure is a five-time TED speaker and the author of Sound Affects: How Sound Shapes Our Lives, Our Wellbeing and Our Planet, and he argues conscious listening is an invaluable tool for elevating conversations. Julian joins Chris to give advice on how to speak better, the listening method that could save your marriage, and how to be comfortable in silence.
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Host: Chris Duffy (Instagram: @chrisiduffy | chrisduffycomedy.com)
Guest: Julian Treasure (Instagram: @juliantreasure | LinkedIn: @juliantreasure | Website: https://www.juliantreasure.com/)
Links
Sound Affects: How Sound Shapes Our Lives, Our Wellbeing and Our Planet
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and today's |
| 0:06.0 | episode is a special one because we recorded this live in person at the TED conference in Vancouver. |
| 0:11.0 | And this is with a person who in many ways embodies Ted. His TED talks are some of the most |
| 0:15.9 | watched ever. Julian Treasure is a musician. He is someone who has worked as a publisher and a |
| 0:21.6 | marketer. He's a writer and a speaker. And the through line through all of his many different |
| 0:26.0 | various careers has been paying really close attention to the sounds that we make and to the |
| 0:31.3 | things that we hear. Julian describes his work as asking us to pay attention to how the sounds |
| 0:36.4 | around us affect us and to become |
| 0:38.3 | conscious in our speaking and especially our listening. Julian's latest book is called sound effects, |
| 0:43.5 | how sound shapes our lives, our well-being, and our planet. And it is divided into four parts, |
| 0:48.5 | exploring the sounds of the planet, the sounds of nature, the sounds that humans make, and silence. |
| 0:54.5 | Let's start with the sounds that we make as humans. |
| 0:57.7 | So here is a clip from a TED talk that Julian gave back in 2013, |
| 1:01.8 | when he had already been thinking about this for years. |
| 1:05.0 | The human voice. It's the instrument we all play. |
| 1:09.6 | It's the most powerful sound in the world, probably. It's the only one that can start a war or say, I love you. |
| 1:14.6 | And yet many people have the experience that when they speak, people don't listen to them. |
| 1:18.6 | Why is that? How can we speak powerfully to make change in the world? |
| 1:24.6 | Keep listening to this show because you will hear Julian's answers to those questions and so many more. |
| 1:31.8 | We will be right back after these ads. |
| 2:01.1 | Hi there. This is Jake Comfrey from the High Performance Podcast. I'm really happy to say that our podcast is currently sponsored by Sage and their AI powered productivity assistant, Sage co-pilot. This is where Sage is bringing their 40 plus years of experience with businesses like yours into the world of AI, but in a way that's actually useful and not overwhelming. |
| 2:05.7 | So if you're a small or medium-sized business and you need some extra help chasing payments, |
... |
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