Hey, folks, it's Charles Duhigg, the former host of Slate's advice podcast, How To, and the author of The Power of Habit.

I'm teaming up with Slate again for a mini-series based on my latest book, Super Communicators, How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection.

It's a deep dive into how to have better conversations about the neuroscience behind how we connect with each other and why the right

questions can transform complete strangers into immediate friends.

The very first time I did this was at a conference.

These were all like C-suite executives.

That's the psychologist Nick Epley.

He paired all those execs up and then he told them that they had to

ask and answer a really personal question. When's the last time you cried in front of another

person? And you could sort of feel the whole room just groan. After 10 minutes, everybody was deep

in conversation. I finally get the 20 minutes. A couple of them were hugging each other.

It was kind of magical that moment, actually.

Join me, Charles Duhigg, for Super Communicators,

wherever you get your podcasts.

Music Hello and welcome to Outward Slate's LGBT podcast that has proudly been available in the vernacular instead of high Latin since day one.

I'm your host, Jules Gil Peterson, and if that very cryptic opener has you scratching your head,

let me tell you, we have a fabulous episode today that's going to take us back, like way back,

to the era that we call early modern, to the Renaissance, to the surprisingly transgender

shenanigans that Europeans were getting up to before the world got all modern. If you want

to hear all of the tea about, you know, maybe witches, sex-changing Christ figures,

and more held in the manuscripts and imagery of the 16th and 17th centuries, well, honey,

have I got an interview for you? I'll be chatting with Colby Gordon, who's a professor,

...