The Science of Conversation: How To Say What You Mean, Be Heard, and Stop People-Pleasing | Alison Wood Brooks
10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Media, LLC
4.6 • 12.2K Ratings
🗓️ 25 August 2025
⏱️ 82 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
You talk all day. Here’s how to do it better, according to a professor from Harvard Business School.
Alison Wood Brooks comes from the Harvard Business School, where she teaches a course called “TALK: How to Talk Gooder in Business and Life,” which she has now turned into a book, called TALK: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves.
In this episode we talk about:
- The evolution of conversationÂ
- Why conversation is a skill — not just a natural talentÂ
- How to develop conversational skills, including common conversational pitfalls to avoid
- Granular, tactical pieces of advice on how to have a conversation
- The science behind conversation that may surprise you
- Listening tipsÂ
- Conversational repair strategiesÂ
- How kindness can go pear shapedÂ
- How to handle difficult moments in conversationÂ
- The difference between focusing on other people and people pleasingÂ
- How to integrate these incredible learnings into your lifeÂ
- How soft skills are becoming increasingly more valuable with the rise of AIÂ
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. |
| 0:12.1 | Hello, everybody. How we doing? |
| 0:20.6 | Today we're coming back to something that I marvel at all the time. |
| 0:24.2 | You may have heard me say this before, but I'm going to say it again. We are social animals. Humans evolved to thrive in relationship with other people. We're born helpless and howling and we rely on other people to take care of us and then we take care of other people. We're born, helpless and howling, and we rely on other people to take care of us, |
| 0:40.1 | and then we take care of other people, et cetera, et cetera. We're in a, whether we like it or not, |
| 0:45.6 | in a web. And yet, and this is a shocking part, given how connection is in our DNA, |
| 0:53.0 | it's shocking to me that we are rarely, if ever, taught how to deal with |
| 0:58.5 | other people. We're just kind of like let lose into the world to fuck it up. So specifically today, |
| 1:05.6 | we're going to talk about this science of conversation. Many of us are talking all day, |
| 1:09.8 | every day. It's the main sort of unit of currency |
| 1:12.5 | in human affairs. But how many of us have ever received any training in how best to convey |
| 1:19.5 | our ideas and needs and absorb those of other people? My guest today is Allison Wood Brooks. |
| 1:26.1 | She comes from the Harvard Business School where |
| 1:27.8 | she teaches a course called How to Talk Gooder, which is amazing, which she has now turned |
| 1:33.6 | into a book called Talk, the Science of Conversation, the Art of Being Ourselves. In this conversation, |
| 1:38.8 | we talk about the evolution of conversation, why conversation is a skill, not just a natural talent, how to |
| 1:45.4 | develop conversational skills, including common conversational pitfalls to avoid, granular tactical |
| 1:51.3 | pieces of advice on how to have a conversation, the science behind conversation that may surprise |
| 1:56.1 | you, some listening tips, conversational repair strategies, how kindness can go pear-shaped, how to |
| 2:02.8 | handle difficult moments in conversation, the difference between focusing on other people and |
| 2:07.8 | people-pleasing, you want to do the former and avoid the latter, how to integrate all of these |
| 2:13.3 | incredible learnings into your life and how soft skills are becoming increasingly valuable in the |
... |
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