247 Speaking Of Race with Journalist and Bestselling Author Celeste Headlee

Our ability to communicate and collaborate is core to our humanity. Yet we live in a time where many of us seem to have a very tough time having real, powerful dialogues. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Celeste Headlee shows us how it’s done. Celeste Headlee is the author of the bestselling book; We Need to Talk: How to have conversations that matter. She has also given out a TED talk, titled 10 Ways to have Better Conversations, which has 25 million views. Her most recent book is called Speaking of Race, which emphasizes the need to talk about racism, and how to do it. What you're about to hear is a deep conversation on why authentic conversations matter and how to have them. Also, pay close attention to her ideas on how you can be a more powerful conversationalist, and why our brain rewards us when we have real dialogue. Celeste Headlee and the Passion for Conversation The conversation starts off with Celeste sharing where her passion for conversations came from. Celeste shares that there are a few things that bother her as one gets older. Though the one thing that upsets her is when there are things that can be fixed, that are totally fixable, though having proper conversations. “I mean, there's just very little that we can't talk through as human beings. And so I'm passionate about it because it's universal. Every single person on the planet needs to be able to converse with others and communicate with others well, and be it's just the root of problem solving. I mean, this is what solves problems, period, whatever they are.” – Celeste Headlee Why People are not having Meaningful Conversations Celeste shares her thoughts as to why people seem to have lost the ability to have a meaningful conversation. She has discovered an interesting tidbit while researching for her second book, and it dates all the way back to the Industrial Revolution. While recent developments and social norms may have exacerbated the situation, the turning point seems to have happened when one guy discovered how to use steam to make our lives better. “Prior to the Industrial Revolution. Most people lived in rural areas, most people interacted with maybe 100 or 150 people over the course of their lives. Then all of a sudden, the Industrial Revolution came in. Everybody flips over till most people are living in urban areas. Because of that, most people are encountering 1000s of people over the course of a week or a month instead. And it just happened too quickly. We weren't able to adjust evolve that fast.” – Celeste Headlee Bringing Back Good and Meaningful Conversations Celeste thinks that most people don’t know what conversation is anymore. There are some who say that they are good conversationalists. That is, they are good talkers. Those are not the same thing at all. In order to be a good conversationalist, you have to not only be a good talker. You also have to listen as well as you talk. “I imagine (Oscar Wilde) was not a good conversationalist. Fantastic talker, but not good in conversation. Why? Because you have to be able to listen as well as you talk. And the smarter you are, the harder that challenge becomes. The wittier you are, the funnier you are, the harder that becomes. But also, listening is just hard. It's hard for our species. I think that some of the people that we think of as not being good in conversations are much better than they get credit for. And those are the people who speak less than they listen.” – Celeste Headlee To hear more from Celeste Headlee on the importance of having a meaningful conversation, download and listen to this episode. Bio Celeste Headlee is an award-winning journalist who has appeared on NPR, PBS World, PRI, CNN, BBC and other international networks.  She was formerly a host at National Public Radio,