Adam Carolla on Communication

Q: "How did you get your psychological understanding of people?"

A: "This entire planet is filled with human beings. More people spend time figuring out how to communicate with their dogs than with people. We spend no time trying to figuring out people and how they work and what motivates them, but they will decide whether you have a happy satisfied life or a shit life. And at some point on some level I realized I should start studying people. Because if I figure out how people work then I can figure out how to get money from them, how I can get sex from them, how... and I'm not talking about manipulating them or getting them to do shit they don't want to do, I just mean understand people.

Q: "When did you realize that though?"

A: "I don't think I ever really consciously did it but it was always in the back of my mind. I studied people, I wanted to know why they did stuff and what motivated them to do the things they did do or didn't do and then how could I prevent it from happening again to me or somebody else. And so it always became a sort of quiet hobby of mine that I was going to study people and try to understand how best to deal with those people.

I'm a person, I don't want to get beat up, I don't want to get fired, I don't want to get divorced, I don't want to get 'fill in the blank'. You don't want your kids to hate you: figure out how to be a decent dad. You want your boss to give you a raise. When someone is throwing a party you want to get invited. How does it all work?"

(via Thursday's podcast)