Includes index

Relating: it's the cake -- Theater games with engineers -- The heart and head of communication -- The mirror exercise -- Observation games -- Making it clear and vivid -- Reading minds: Helen Riess and Matt Lerner -- Teams -- Total listening starts with where they are -- Listening, from the boardroom to the bedroom -- Training doctors to have more empathy -- My life as a lab rat -- Working alone on building empathy -- Dark empathy -- Reading the mind of the reader -- Teaching and the flame challenge -- Emotion makes it memorable -- Story and the brain -- Commonality -- Jargon and the curse of knowledge -- The improvisation of daily life

The actor and founder of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science traces his personal quest to understand how to relate and communicate better, from practicing empathy and using improv games to storytelling and developing better intuitive skills