134 Teaching Minds our wives and children and friends and co-workers all the time. It is possible to teach negotiation, of course. My team once built a course on negotiation, working with a Harvard Law professor’ who taught negotiation. The course worked by having people negotiate. The situations were artificial so there is some question as to how valu- able lessons can be learned from negotiating when nothing important (except ego) depends on it. What I found most interesting about that course were the stories that the expert told from his life as a profes- sional negotiator. I can’t say that I was ever able to personally make use of the lessons that those stories taught, but other people’s experi- ences are interesting to think about. In the end, what we really know about negotiation is what has worked well for us in the course of our lives when we were negotiating. Coaching can help, of course, which implies that the best way to teach negotiation would be with a men- tor watching you do it for real and offering tips. Psychologists perform this service in couples counseling, and presumably real estate agents perform this service for homebuyers and sellers. Just-in-time advice is always helpful. HOW TO TEACH DESCRIBING There is a famous quote: “I apologize that this letter is so long—I lacked the time to make it short.”8 As long as people have been talk- ing, they have had to learn to talk well. When they learned to write, they had to learn to write well. Communication is a very big part of living in a society and those who communicate well gain all kinds of advantages. It is difficult to attain public office without speaking well, or to become an important academic without writing well, or to make sales or convince anyone of anything without making your case well. This takes practice and coaching, and there is no substitute for ei- ther. One also has to have something to say, so this means one has to have had experiences to talk and write about. Further, it he