Joe Sanok 00:00:00 You’re someone with a vision for your practice, for your side hustle, and for your personal journey. But when it comes to establishing your path and how to get to where you want to be with your practice, things get a little messy. You’re also someone who would prefer to go in person instead of to groups and listening to everyone else’s story. To me, it sounds like you could benefit from one on one consulting with our experienced practice of the practice consultants from 595 a month and up, you can work with a consultant that will give you more direction and practical, tried and tested tips matched to you and your goals. For more information, visit practice of the practice. Com forward slash apply. Again, that’s practice of the practice. Com forward slash apply. For. This is the practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sarna. Accession number 1048. I’m Joe, sound like you’re hosting welcome to the practice of the practice podcast, where we are now coming to you seven days a week. we’ve had some amazing sponsors. Joe Sanok 00:01:13 Come on. We’ve had amazing guests. We are in full court press getting ready for Level Up week in just a month. Level Up week is right around the corner. You’re going to want to make sure that you register for Level Up Week, because we put together 16 webinars that are live webinars in four days, and we have people that come in, in, we have panels of people that have started solo practices. We have other panels for people that are moving from solo into group group practice owners. How do you market and stay full? All of that’s going to be live September 16th through 19th, and we just did the series here on the podcast where we played all the recordings from our spring Level Up week. So hopefully you caught a bunch of those, but you can register over at practice of the practice. Com forward slash level up. And it’s just a great time to be able to connect with other therapists to ask your questions, to dig in, and to really dream big about what leveling up could be for you and for your practice. Joe Sanok 00:02:11 I know for myself, until I started being around other practice owners, I didn’t really see the potential of what I could be doing. And you know, just having friends that are in the space across the country can help you level up in a way, through those connections that maybe you really just couldn’t do if you weren’t a part of something like Level Up Week. I’m also so excited to have our guest today as we’re talking about connections, David Robson’s new book, The Laws of Connection. It just came out this summer. David is an award winning science writer and the author of The Intelligence Trap The Expectation Effect, and the Laws of Connection. A graduate of Cambridge University. He previously worked as an editor at New Scientist. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Guardian, The Atlantic, Men’s Health, The Psychologist, The Washington Post, and many other publications. The Intelligence Trap has been translated into 15 languages, and David lives in England. David, welcome to the show. David Robson 00:03:06 Thanks so much for having me. David Robson 00:03:07 I’m looking forward to the conversation. Joe Sanok 00:03:09 Yeah, I always love having fellow authors on the show and people that dig into the science and then try to translate complex science into something that the average person can understand. Or I would like to think my audience might be a little above average. But, when it comes to writing, before we dig into just like the meat of what your new book is about, I’d love to hear more about your process. Because like when I wrote Thursday is the New Friday, I kind of discovered a process for myself where I would gather information in Trello and then sort it out and then put it on a whiteboard and had this whole kind of flow that worked really well for me, where I was writing a chapter or so a week as I was sorting through it. I’d love to hear. What’s your process look like when you’re thinking about a new book, gathering the information, organizing it, and writing it? Like, what’s that process look like? David Robson 00:03:54 Yeah, I mean, I have quite an intense planning process. David Robson 00:03:58 so like, you know, before I’ve even been commissioned to write the book, you know, I’ll, I’ll be kind of I’ll have, like, this kind of spark of inspiration and idea on a topic. normally based on new research that I’ve just read, and then I’ll start collecting, like a huge document of just every paper that I come across, that’s relevant to that. And often then the structure and the, kind of argument of the book will emerge quite naturally from, you know, these hundreds of papers that I’ve seen that often it becomes just very apparent to me quite quickly, the shape of what that book is going to look like. then like I go through, you know, I write a very detailed proposal, which could be as much as 30,000 words, for my agent and editor to take a look at and give me feedback on before I then go and actually write the book itself. So there’s a lot of work up front. I find that, you know, it gives me a lot of, kind of time and resources to allow the ideas to mature. David Robson 00:05:03 I kind of put everything I learn from the academic scientific literature into practice myself. Like, I couldn’t really write about something that I hadn’t, you know, tried and could, could be sure that it’s really practical value to people. so, you know, that all goes into the kind of research time. And then and then there’s the kind of fun part which is actually writing those, those chapters, like expressing the ideas and the best way that I can. Joe Sanok 00:05:31 Yeah. No, I would love to hear an example of for this book, what was something you discovered in the research that you then tested out or tried? David Robson 00:05:42 Sure. I mean, so many examples, but I think like one of the findings that just was immediately transformative to me was this idea, this phenomenon called the liking gap, which emerged in the research in around 2018. And as it’s been replicated many times and, put simply, this is that phenomenon when two people who haven’t met before have a conversation, they get on really well, like each, each member of that pair likes the other person. David Robson 00:06:18 but they assume that they like the other person more than the other person likes them. so, like, it isn’t a it’s a faulty intuition that we underestimate how appealing we’ve been. And we we start to lose faith in the, the sense of connection that we’ve developed. And that can be a big barrier to connection, because when we we have those self-doubts, it means that we’re less likely to to try to kind of, build on that instant rapport and to meet that person again or to collaborate with them in the workplace. and learning about the liking gap. for me, you know, I’d, had quite a lot of social anxiety in the past. and often, you know, I’d be shy meeting new people beforehand, but often the, the thing that, like, would really cause a lot of anxiety for me would be like playing over conversations and thinking of all of the kind of faux pas that I must have made and, you know, and then that prevented me from, you know, sometimes I’d actively avoid people because I felt kind of this embarrassment about how the conversation had gone in my eyes and learning about the liking. David Robson 00:07:30 Gap just told me that, like, I was probably blowing those things way out of proportion, that, you know, all of my my fears were probably unfounded. And, you know, I tried consciously to kind of to question those assumptions. And, you know, that has just been a source of incredible self-confidence to me, because actually, I found that when I, you know, when I did kind of try to connect with people again, you know, after those first conversations that, you know, they they really did like me, genuinely. They weren’t just being polite and like, so I’ve just that learning that one fact has actually generated just a lot of friendships for me. I just think it’s incredibly powerful and potent. Joe Sanok 00:08:14 Yeah. It’s so interesting how, like, as you say that, I think about how so I mean, I do improv and on Sunday we had a show and this other dad from the school, came by to watch the improv show, and we talked for a while afterwards, and he seems to like, know a lot of people at the school. Joe Sanok 00:08:32 And I would like to think that I have strong self-confidence, but I really enjoyed talking with him and just thinking about I probably subconsciously was thinking like, I probably enjoyed that even more than he enjoyed it. And it’s like, why the heck am I second guessing my ability to create friendships, you know? And so I haven’t heard it named that way. And, I think even just having that awareness then to, to challenge that and say, like if I text him and say, hey, you want to grab a coffee, he’s probably gonna say, yes. And we could have a great new friendship. David Robson 00:09:04 Right, exactly. And, you know, I also find like it’s very comforting, I think, to recognize this kind of shared humanity in that experience. you know, it’s part of self-compassion to recognize that the things that you’re worrying about, you know, other people are probably worrying about, too. And I, you know, I think in the past, I’d felt very isolated. I’d felt like I must be strange and unusual and that I felt like this. David Robson 00:09:31 And then you find out now, you know, on average, like most people are going through those doubts. So that in itself is a source of comfort. But then, like you say, it can change our behavior and something that I like, you know, that I, I try to do is to just verbalize how much I’ve appreciated someone’s, time and conversation, just to kind of try to assure them to reduce their liking gap. because, you know, if we’re all feeling it, I think we can all make an effort to try to, to reduce those doubts. Joe Sanok 00:10:05 Well, so the book The Laws of Connection. I know you can never summarize the whole book. That’s why people should go buy the book and read it. But what are some of the kind of, if you were to walk us through just from like a big picture umbrella, kind of the flow of the book? take us through that. And then there’s probably going to be particular areas that I want to dig into. David Robson 00:10:25 Sure. so, you know, the book starts out by kind of looking at, at the health benefits of social connection. You know, it’s basically asking the question like, why? Why should we even care that much about social connection? And the answer is because it’s super important for your health and well-being, like, exercise, diet. where if you take medications for hypertension, all of these factors are really important for living a long and healthy life. But up there with them, you know, roughly equivalent to whether you smoke or how much you drink is social connection. you know, it really is profoundly important for our health. So I try to establish that in the first chapter and discuss, you know, how social connection can do other things, like it increases our creativity, for example, and helps us to deal with financial instability. But then I go on and look at the psychological barriers, phenomena like the liking gap that prevent us from building connection. And, you know, the upshot of all of this research is that actually the connection that we crave is much closer, and more easily achievable than we think. David Robson 00:11:46 So we have a whole bunch of, of these barriers that just, needlessly kind of sabotage, some of our interactions. So we’re just not, making the most of our potential. so I look at how that affects forming friendships and then how it can also, kind of harm the maintenance of friendships. and I divide all of that into, what amounts to 13 different laws, each looking at a different, type of bias that’s, that’s reducing our potential for connection. And I describe, you know, using evidence based techniques, how to overcome them. Joe Sanok 00:12:28 What are a few of those laws of connection that you cite in the book? David Robson 00:12:33 So, I guess like one of the the first law is looking at the consistency of our, behavior to other people. So we know that, you know, psychologists studying, the health benefits of relationships have shown it’s not just the number, but the quality that matters. You can have purely supportive friendships, purely aversive, like nasty kind of people in your life who you try to avoid. David Robson 00:13:04 But then often you have these ambivalent relationships, kind of Jekyll and Hyde figures or frenemies who can, kind of act like your best friend, friend one minute and then they can lash out the next. what the research shows is that those ambivalent relationships are often the most toxic for our health, because they hold us on this kind of knife edge. it can be very stressful for people to be around those ambivalent relationships worse even than the aversive relationships. And so the first law is just to try to look at our own behavior and try to recognize that consistency is really important in our behavior. And we have to look at, you know, whether there are some ways that we might be accidentally, kind of adding that uncertainty to these relationships, and try to overcome that. and that, you know, I think that then kind of lays the kind of ground for all that follows, because actually, then all of the other laws rely on us, they help us to achieve that consistency. They point out the things you might be doing wrong and how to overcome them. Joe Sanok 00:14:23 I am so excited about alma. When I had my private practice, I struggled building my caseload, attracting the right clients, managing the business side. And honestly, one of the reasons I didn’t take insurance was it was so difficult to navigate. So many of my consulting clients deal with these problems as well, and almost supports clinicians in building rewarding private practices with simplified insurance credentialing in under 45 days, enhanced reimbursement rates, and guaranteed two week payback. Plus a free profile in their searchable Fillable Directory. Making it easy for clients where the right fit for your practice to find you. Learn more about how alma could support your private practice at. Hello, alma. Com forward slash Jo that’s hello alma.com/jo to learn more. Big picture. How has, learning these laws of connection personally for you? Like what have you changed in regards to how you approach connections, the value of connections, the time you like, focus on connections like what’s what’s shifted for you, through learning kind of the science of connections. David Robson 00:15:37 I mean, so many things. David Robson 00:15:39 But, you know, another one of these laws, concerns how we express appreciation for other people. so the fact is that we, we don’t compliment people enough. We don’t express gratitude enough. it’s not that we don’t feel these things. We actually, you know, inside in our heads, we have, you know, very positive about the people that we meet or the people that we’re close to. but for various reasons, we bite back those words of praise. it’s partly a matter of, confidence in our competency and our social fluency. we assume we’re going to be kind of a bit too clumsy and that our compliments are going to just sound kind of awkward, a bit too unctuous. so we avoid saying them, and we assume that the other person kind of knows that they’re great anyway, they don’t really need to. they don’t really need us to tell them what’s what’s wonderful about them or how much we, appreciated that kind gesture. so we underestimate how much pleasure they’ll get from those compliments. David Robson 00:16:47 And the research shows, you know, our fears are unfounded. Like, you know, we’re pretty good at, expressing praise when we do do it. Like, our words are pretty effective, that the other people don’t feel awkward, that they just love hearing those words of praise. And, you know, you can do it repeatedly, like day after day after day, praising people. And they never get tired of hearing it. So it’s not like we have to kind of, portion out our praise to, to give it value. Like the more you do it, the better. And so it’s a great shame that we just don’t express appreciation as much as we do. so, you know, that has certainly made me more conscious of just, you know, reaching out to people when I think they’ve done something that I really like and making sure that I’m explicit about that rather than assuming that they’ll they’ll know how I feel. and then, you know, following on from that, like, that is advice on how you can make those words of appreciation just carry a bit more weight, how you can make sure that they really do the job that you intend. David Robson 00:17:48 and that is by making sure that the compliments are very precise. So you want to use, you know, really like exact language on describing exactly what you admire. And you want to make sure that especially when expressing gratitude, you want to make sure that the words are really focused on the other person, and not just on the kind of the act or the favor that they’ve done you. so, you know, if someone’s kind of helping you out with a task, you can kind of say, like, how much I appreciate it, that they’ve saved you a lot of time and effort, and that is, you know, that’s perfectly fine. That’s a good, good way to start, expressing gratitude. But what would make it, you know, much more personal and mean a lot more to the other person, as if you start to talk about the qualities that they carry or the abilities, skills that had allowed them to do that. So start talking about their generosity, recognizing that there was plenty of other stuff they could have done with their time, or talk about their expertise, you know, why they were the best person to have done that job and how you you really appreciate the fact that they always lend you that expertise when you need it. David Robson 00:18:59 so that’s one thing that I’ve, you know, really taken on board, is, you know, I, I felt before writing the book that I was a positive person. but I just realized that there was still, still lots of opportunities to express gratitude and to to feel closer to these people, that I’d be missing. And so I try, try to make the most of that now whenever I can. Joe Sanok 00:19:23 Now if someone were to just ask you say in a bar or a coffee shop and just say so. So what do people need when it comes to connections. How would you answer that. David Robson 00:19:35 so without a doubt I would say that, you know, what we need is a sense of shared reality. and that is the feeling that we, that we and the other person that the two of us, process the world and its events in a very similar way. so we have the same thoughts and feelings, you know, spontaneously to different events. now, similarities in other kind of on other qualities are important. David Robson 00:20:09 So, you know, we’re more likely to be friends with someone who comes from the same part of the world as us or speaks the same language or, you know, kind of, has the same sexuality, political views, whatever. But actually it’s those intimate, intimate moments of connection of, those spontaneous thoughts and feelings that really predicts, closeness. So, it could be manifested in saying, saying the same words at the same time, you know, finishing off each other’s sentences, laughing at the same jokes, showing the same visceral response to a piece of art or music. The more of those that those those moments that people share. The closer they feel to each other. And I think this is why we have that phenomenon often when, you can be surrounded by people like, you can have lots of, you know, people in your phone book, or followers on social media, but you can feel very lonely because you lack that shared reality with those people. psychologists are studying this phenomenon. They call that a sense of existential isolation. David Robson 00:21:24 And you can kind of imagine you’ve probably felt it if you were like in, in the cinema or, you know, at a comedy gig and you found that you were just the only person in the whole room who was kind of sitting stony faced while everyone was laughing around you. That’s existential isolation and for connection. We want to avoid that. We want to be part of this shared reality with the the people who are around us. We want to find people who provide that shared reality for us. Joe Sanok 00:21:56 Now we’re talking to a bunch of therapists who are in practice. They’re seeing clients. They’re also helping other therapists that may be in their group practice see clients. What would you hope that the therapy world takes away from your book and starts to implement in their work with their clients? David Robson 00:22:14 I mean, I wouldn’t want to, you know, like, I think like therapists are doing such a difficult and complex job as it is. but, you know, I do think there are conclusions from this research that can be, like very helpful potentially. David Robson 00:22:32 And so one thing that I’ve been researching recently on the back of my book is, a piece for the Psychologist magazine, in the UK, that was looking at, self-disclosure amongst, therapists. Should therapists kind of ever talk about their own experiences with their clients, that how much personal information should they share? And so I’ve been looking into the research. there are some conflicting results. But in general, you know, in moderation, when it’s done with tact and skill, the research does suggest that some self-disclosure can be useful for gaining the, the clients trust. getting them to, you know, encouraging them, kind of acting as a model for them to, to to disclose themselves and to, to verbalize what their feelings so that then they can, you know, potentially change, their interpretation of events. I found that very, you know, very surprising and profound because I also discovered while reading about this that, you know, Freud, for example, when he was first writing about psychoanalysis, had had the opinion that the the therapist should really be almost like a blank wall or a mirror that’s only reflecting what the client is feeling. David Robson 00:24:01 But, you know, according to this research and these kind of like big reviews of all the evidence to date, it really does seem that actually on occasion to talk about relevant experiences can be useful. Joe Sanok 00:24:15 Well, the last question I always ask is if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know. David Robson 00:24:23 So I think beyond what we’ve spoken about and I just think, you know, even in their private life, I think what would be, super useful is just to understand, a little bit more about the, the, kind of some of the other laws of connection and the ways that we can, achieve, social connection in our own personal lives. so to just give a few examples, I think, we often have, like, pretty, pretty flawed intuitions about topics like, forgiveness. I think like most, most therapists are going to know that forgiveness is, you know, a good place, a good thing to achieve and that, you know, we should be striving towards that. David Robson 00:25:18 but what the research shows from experimental psychology is that we often personally underestimate how how much other people, would like to forgive us if they’re given the chance. we, for example, you know, we we just assume that once we’ve kind of broken, our connection or fractured our connection with someone that is kind of, irreversible. And so we don’t even bother to kind of try to apologize or to express our regret. that’s just another one of these, faulty intuitions, those psychological barriers that actually often just doesn’t match the reality of what people are feeling. And once you recognize that, you know, there is an opportunity for forgiveness, you know, that can then really encourage you to think more carefully about the words that you say in your apology. So, you know, apologies do have to like, consider like a, a kind of, they have, like, a good apology has a certain kind of number of set ingredients, is recognizing fully the mistake that you’ve made your responsibility for it. your desire to make amends. David Robson 00:26:34 When you’re apologizing, you should give the other person enough time to talk about what hurt them and their interpretation of events, and how they would like you to improve. you know, all of these things, we can we can sometimes rush our apologies or we just we’re not delivering them in the correct way. And considering those can be incredibly helpful in our personal lives. Joe Sanok 00:26:59 So awesome. David, if people want to get your book, if they want to follow your work, where should we send them? David Robson 00:27:05 so, my website is, David Robertson Dot me. And on that site you’ll find links to, you know, all kinds of booksellers who will be stocking the book. I mean, it should be available wherever you normally get your books, you know? Amazon, Barnes and Noble, you know, bookshop.org all of these places will be stocking the book. Your local independent bookshop should be, too. so, yeah, you know, I love to hear feedback, and you can you can contact me through the contact form on my website. David Robson 00:27:43 Or you could also get in touch on D underscore a underscore Robson at for my Twitter. or you could, contact me on David a Robson on Instagram. Joe Sanok 00:27:59 So awesome. Thank you so much for being on the show. David Robson 00:28:03 My pleasure. Thanks. Joe Sanok 00:28:13 Whether you’re just starting a solo practice or you are growing a mega group practice, we have support and a community for you. we are going to be hanging out in mid September with Level Up Week. we have 16 webinars we’re going to be doing in four days. You can register and read all about those over at practice of the practice. Com slash level up. Also that’s when we open up our membership communities. So if you’re in solo practice we have next level practice that helps you. We have weekly live meetings. We have over 40 courses. And every month I’m recording more courses to help you. We have small groups. We have all sorts of things to help you when you’re just getting going. And then if you have a group practice or if you’re moving into group practice, we have group practice launch where it’s going to walk you through over six months, how to make your first hire guaranteed. Joe Sanok 00:29:03 And if you don’t hire in that first six months, you can go back through the program for free and then group practice boss. That’s opening up as well in September. That’s our membership community. Same thing where we have weekly meetings. You get access to all the courses, all the help and support to run a group practice. So all of that and all the details about Level Up Week and our communities opening up in September are over at practice of the practice.com/level up. Also, we couldn’t do this show without our amazing sponsors like alma. Alma is amazing. I have so many consulting clients that have signed up to work with alma. They simplify the insurance credentialing process so that you get credentialed in under 45 days. Also, they negotiate enhanced reimbursement rates for you and the guarantee that you’ll get paid in two weeks. Plus, you get a free profile in their directory. So there’s really not a reason that you shouldn’t sign up. Head on over to hello all my com slash Joe to learn more. Again, that’s hello al McCombs Joe to learn more. Joe Sanok 00:30:01 Thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band silence sexy for that intro music. And this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publishers or guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.