How to Click With Anyone, Read Every Room, and Stop Absorbing Other People's Stress | Kate Murphy

This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody, how are we doing? Do you ever wonder why you click with some people and not others, or why some people are attractive to you either romantically or as a colleague or as a friend, and other people just are kind of repellent? And similarly, why some people just don't seem to like you.

The answer to all of these questions has to do with a concept called interpersonal synchrony, which is basically the mind-blowing fact that we are constantly and subconsciously mirroring the people around us sinking with the people around us, our brainwaves, our heart rates, our hormones. It's wild. Today we've got a fascinating and very practical conversation about how you can harness interpersonal synchrony to your advantage at work, in your romantic life, with your friends, etc. And specifically, we talk a lot about a very common pain point, which is how to stop absorbing other people's bad energy.

My guest has a lot of tips for avoiding that problem. Said guest is the journalist Kate Murphy, author of a book called Why We Click. In this conversation, we talk about how individualism and technology are working against our need to connect, our deeply evolutionarily wired need to connect with other human beings, how much you can actually change your vibe. How to read the room like a trial lawyer, the secret to bonding with other people. And uh, and I love this as somebody who hates Zoom, why audio only calls are much better if you actually want to connect with the other person.

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