Relationships thrive on genuine connection—on feeling heard, understood, and supported at a deeper level. Yet all too often, we hold back, afraid of vulnerability, or simply unsure how to open up. This pattern of emotional distance is sometimes called “emotional unavailability.” While it can protect us from hurt, it also holds us back from the warmth and intimacy we crave.

Why do we intend to do things but often don’t follow through? Learn how the Theory of Reasoned Action explains this puzzle—and how attitudes, social norms, and perceived obstacles shape your intentions and actions.

When you have something difficult to say, something that might hurt or embarrass the person you're talking to, how should you say it?

Should you come right out and say it, bluntly and honestly?

Or should you be tactful and indirect?

What values should guide us in these situations?

Is honesty the highest value? Or is kindness?

I want to talk about why we're often so scared of social interaction.

A lot of us are really scared about having a conversation.

We get anxious about giving a public speech, and we just have the feeling that the social world and social interaction and conversations are frightening and anxiety provoking.

The question is, why?

What exactly are we scared of?

I want to tell you a story.

In addition to being a college professor, I'm a consultant. The most common kind of training I do, as a consultant, is communication skills training.

I specialize in training health professionals how to talk to patients and families who have been harmed by healthcare.

These are very difficult conversations. We focus a lot on empathic communication skills, which is a topic I've taught a lot about.

I'm going to teach you the single most important step you can take to begin to improve your communication skill.

Our own behavior is killing us.

If you look at the top 10 causes of death, you'll see at the top diseases like heart disease, cancer, and stroke, but it's actually our own behavior, smoking, drinking, not exercising, having a poor diet, which lead to the problems.

If you want to change people's behavior, you have to stop giving them information.

Information alone simply isn't persuasive. Most of the time, people already have a lot of the basic information like smoking causes lung cancer, but it doesn't change their behavior.

If you want to actually change people's behavior, you have to put this information into a story.

Living in 2021 with all of its illness, despair, and violence makes us long for a way of communicating with one another that could produce better outcomes for all of us.

We want a way to communicate that could allow all of us to have our needs be understood and met while meeting other people's needs as well.

I'm going to talk about a technique for communicating called nonviolent communication.

It was developed by an author named Marshall Rosenberg back in the late sixties, early seventies.

It helps us communicate in a way that expresses our feelings, expresses our needs, and respects the needs and feelings of other people.

I'm going to describe one extremely simple step you can take to dramatically improve the quality of your conversations and the closeness and intimacy of your relationships.

And although it's simple, it's not easy.

In fact, most people simple will not do it.

Do you want to be a great listener?

I'm going to tell you what great listeners actually do.

These are 3 key characteristics of people who really know how to listen.

Have you ever tried to be emotionally supportive to a friend and instead made things worse?

I know I have.

It's easy to say the wrong thing when we are trying to help people handle painful emotions.

Here I give you a guide to the potential landmines that you need to avoid.

I'm going to tell you what not to say when you're trying to comfort or provide emotional support to a friend or a loved one.

How much should you tell people about yourself and how soon?

This post explains how self-disclosure, when done correctly, improves relationships, but when done badly, destroys relationships.

Self-disclosure is the key to the growth and development of any relationship, and thus is a key flirting skill.

If you want to learn how to flirt, or get better at flirting, you have to learn how and when to tell people about yourself.

If you want to be successful personally and professionally, you have to put down your phone and learn to have face-to-face conversations.

The popularity of cell phones has made an entire generation of young people afraid of face-to-face conversation.

If you don't stop texting, and instead learn to embrace telephone calls and face-to-face conversations, you will never develop the emotional intelligence, maturity, and empathy that are necessary to be a happy, successful person.

One of the main reasons people are afraid of face-to-face conversation and prefer texting is that they say when they're texting, they can edit what they say and correct things.

I'm going to give you five things you can say that allow you to edit your real-time remarks in a face-to-face conversation or phone call.

Can we learn to be better communicators?

Or are we stuck with the communication skill level and competence that we were born with?

I'm going to define what I mean by the statement that communication is a skill that can be learned.

Empathy is one of the most important communication skills.

In many ways, all other communication skills depend on empathy.

But what is it?

What is the difference between empathy and compassion? Is empathy only about feeling other people's emotions?

Empathy and sympathy?

How much of empathy is about feelings and how much about thoughts? What does emotional regulation have to do with empathy?

What is empathic accuracy?

In high stakes situations, it's really hard to say the right thing.

Unfortunately, it's really easy to say the wrong thing.

Many of us avoid these high stakes, difficult conversations because we're so afraid we're going to say the wrong thing, or we're afraid we won't be able to find the words to say the right thing.

I'm going to describe a simple technique for how not to say the wrong thing in a high stakes situation.

All of us want to be more effective communicators.

One key to effectiveness is credibility, or believability.

I'm going to tell you about credibility - what it is, how you increase your own credibility, and what effect that has on your persuasive success.

I'm going to teach you the five signs that a marriage is almost certain to end in divorce.

One of the keys to a fulfilling and satisfying life is a happy marriage or relationship.

It turns out, of course, that something like half of all marriages end in divorce.

It would really be useful if we could learn some skills that could help us stay married.

I, myself, have been divorced and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. It's a miserable thing for yourself and your family and your children, and it should be avoided at all costs.

But how do we avoid it?

Is there any way of predicting whether the marriage that you're in is headed for divorce, in enough time where you might be able to save it?

I'm going to teach you about three methods of persuasion, when to use each method, and which method is most likely to produce behavior change that really last.

One of the most important functions of communication or tasks in communication is persuasion, which is normally thought of as the science of attitude or behavior change, how we use communication to change people's attitudes and behaviors.

But one question that we might ask ourselves when we engage in persuasion is what kind of change are we really producing in the person that we're persuading?

Is it a superficial change that may go away as soon as we go away?

Or is it a lasting change that will endure long after we're gone and long after our message is forgotten?

I'm going to give you the ultimate guide to reasoned action theory, which is the world's foremost theory of persuasion and behavior change.

If you're a student and you read this, I can guarantee you'll do well on any test or homework assignment that involves this theory.

If you're a practitioner of persuasion of behavior change, this will make you more effective at your job.

Have you ever been in an argument with someone you really care about, and in the middle of the argument, you could just feel things falling apart?

You're just thinking,

I wish I could stop this.

I wish I could reverse this.

I don't know what to do, but things are going in the wrong direction fast.

If I don't do something soon, this could damage or destroy the relationship.