Handling Difficult People, Healing Breakups, and the Science of Talking to Strangers | Shankar Vedantam
2026-03-23 · 57 min · 7 entities
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Handling Difficult People, Healing Breakups, and the Science of Talking to Strangers | Shankar Vedantam Practical strategies for navigating difficult relationships
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Feed category: Mental Health
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Feed author/publisher: 10% Media, LLC
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Handling Difficult People, Healing Breakups, and the Science of Talking to Strangers | Shankar Vedantam Practical strategies for navigating difficult relationships
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Handling Difficult People, Healing Breakups, and the Science of Talking to Strangers | Shankar Vedantam Practical strategies for navigating difficult relationships
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Feed author/publisher: 10% Media, LLC
Episode description as stored
Practical strategies for navigating difficult relationships and building new connections.
Shankar Vedantam is host of the Hidden Brain podcast and radio show, where he explores the hidden patterns that drive human behavior. He is the author of the books, The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Wage Wars, Control Markets and Save Our Lives , and Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self- Deceiving Brain .
In this episode we talk about:
How to stop trying to change your partner
Useful tools for overcoming conflict
The challenging practice of "eating the blame"
The concept of "useful delusions"
How to manage a breakup (of any kind)
The real secret to finding closure
The value of micro interactions with strangers
And more
Related Episodes:
The Surprising Upsides of Self-Deception
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Additional Resources:
Shankar's TED Talks
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