Session 11: Building and Practicing Listening Skills

It is good to have you back. Today has been an awesome day and I'm really looking forward to this next segment. This next segment is in my opinion one of the master keys to the universe and I really don't want to like underestimate what we're going to be doing here. I can't over exaggerate it because listening is right at the heart of everything that we do as coaches, as helpers, as influencers. I don't think that anyone has ever said it better.

I first heard it from Stephen Covey who said, seek first to understand and then to be understood. And we're going to be talking about how to really deeply listen to people in a way that will take your skills to a whole new level in what you're able to do. And I have a bold promise to make. If you pay attention carefully to what we're going to teach here today and you start applying it immediately, you're going to find that you have the ability to reach out and influence people that you were never able to influence before. Because the secret to influence is to listen.

Now I think listening is one of the most important things that I've ever learned personally as a helping person, as a helping professional, and as a coach. And when I was brand new into this field, this was really hard for me because I grew up in a family. I'm the oldest of seven children. I come from a very loud family where everybody basically got heard or noticed by making noise. The more we wanted to stand out, the more we had to just be loud, be big.

And that meant that it was a normal practice to cut each other off while we were listening to stories, to one-up each other. Has anybody else ever done the one-up game? Raise your hand if you've done the one-up game, right? Where it's like, oh yeah, your story, my story, right? You know, it's like, yeah, right?

This is you, this is me, this is you, this is me. So we would go through the routine of one-upping each other all the time. And so learning to listen for me was a really hard transition in the beginning, but it's been one of the things that has paid off absolutely the most. Now I think that listening is comprised of a few different pieces, and so I want to just map those out for you real quick. I think that the very first thing that listening is all about is listening is about presence.

And this isn't something that you can teach a technique for, this is something that you have to decide. Raise your hand if you've ever been with somebody who is pretending to listen, they were doing all the right things, but you could tell they weren't with you? Right, all of us. All of us have had the experience of having someone fake listen. Has anybody ever fake listened to somebody else?

Okay, be honest. How about fake listening with some technique that you learned in a book? Okay, raise your hand, come on, am I the only one? Yes, like, oh yeah, I'm supposed to repeat things back, so I'm going to turn off my brain while the other person's talking, and I'm totally just going to fake it. Right?

How does it feel when you're on the receiving end of that? Not so good. So we're going to say that number one, the first piece of listening is to be present. And this isn't so much something that you have to teach as it is something that you have to decide. So just for a minute, I want to show you as a watcher, because we're going to do this from two parts, how to work it as the watcher and how to work it as the listener.

What does it look like when someone disengages? Can I teach you how to spot that? Would that be all right? So I need a volunteer, who wants to have an interesting experience? Yeah, come on.

Come on, Stacy was just on for our last segment, she's hanging out for a few minutes. Everybody, round of applause for Stacy! Stacy, thank you for coming up. You're welcome. Okay, this is going to be awesome.

You don't have to do much for this one, but we're going to have you face the camera, so the camera can get a really good look on your face, and all I want you to do is I want you to check out. You're not going to say anything, I want you just to go somewhere else in your brain. Do you see it? Raise your hand if you can see it. Come back.

Come back to me. Here we are. Now look back at the audience and check out again. You see it again? Who can see it?

Raise your hand. Now let's debrief it here for just a minute, and it's okay if you didn't see it, okay? Because some of this stuff takes a little bit of practice looking for it, but you don't need a specialized skill, you just need to pay attention. What did you see? And if you're at home, I want you to like take out a pen, I want you to write this down because this is important.

This is going to help you recognize when somebody else is disconnected from you, which may mean that you need to do something to re-engage the conversation, but also on your end, what we're really teaching is like it's super obvious and everyone can actually notice when you're like fake listening. It doesn't work, okay? So what did you notice? So what did you notice? Write it down, write it down.

And what did you guys notice here in studio? What did you notice about Stacey when she actually went inside and disengaged? Okay, Aimee. Her eyes looked kind of like glazed over. Yeah, so her eyes kind of defocused and they looked kind of glassed over.

Way in the back there, Lisa, what do you got for us? Her facial muscles relaxed. Yeah, so the facial muscles kind of go into this like relaxed state. It's like the zombie face, right? And so it's like this mask of not listening.

So again, we think we're being all clever and we're like, oh, I'm just going to like check out here mentally because this is boring, but like the other person is like, oh my gosh, they just like totally ditched me, right? You know, where'd you go? Now you know, right? I know. Now you know.

Okay, what else did you notice? What else did you see? She just became unnaturally still, I felt. So there was like a kind of stillness. Yeah, but like unnatural, like there was no interaction, you know, it was just unnaturally, like a force.

Right. That's absolutely right. Okay, so these are really good observations. And there's more. So if you, if you think that you're tricking people into listening into like fake listening, the first thing I'm going to say is just be present.

Now when I'm working with clients, one of the things that I go through regularly with clients is I go through a little centering exercise and I'm just going to show you how to do this. This isn't really listening, but what this does is this helps people get out of the past, get out of the future and put themselves fully in the now. And it also gives us a way to reconnect if we get lost because, oh my gosh, I hate, I almost hate to admit this, but like as a coach, I have zoned out. Right. Who believes me?

Raise your hand. Okay. Yeah. Have you ever zoned out when it was like the stakes are really high? Okay.

Yeah. And I have learned that it happens. And so I warn my clients, hey, I want to make sure that we both are fully here and fully present, Stacey. And it might happen that one of us disengages for just a minute. And if that happens, I want to do a little ritual to just put us right back into the present moment.

So we're both totally focused. Can I just share with you a little ritual that I do? Yes. Super easy. Okay.

So we're going to do it together and there's no right way or wrong way to do it. So even if you do this totally wrong, it's okay. Is that all right? Okay. Again, now, now here at home, I want you doing this with us.

So just go through the ritual. Keep your eyes open. Keep your eyes focused right on us here and just follow my prompting. Okay. I call this the CAPE process.

Okay. CAPE. It stands for centered, aware, present, and then expanded awareness. And I'll talk about that in just a minute. Okay.

So put your stuff down though. Can you jot down your notes? Okay. And then just set your stuff off to the side because we're going to do this together. Everybody's feet flat on the floor.

If you're listening, feet flat on the floor. And the first part of this is to center yourself. Now people do this in different ways. What I'm going to do is I'm just going to put my attention kind of down deep below my belly and I'm going to take a couple of breaths just to put my attention back in my body. Now the second thing that we're going to do after we're centered is to become aware of the body.

So bring your awareness up to the top of your head and then send it all the way down to the tips of your toes. When you're both centered and aware, just give me a little head nod. I'm aware too. Now we're going to become present. We're going to take a few breaths here.

Three breaths to let go of the past. Three breaths to let go of the future. And then three breaths to connect into the present moment. And we probably breathe at different rates. So when you're done, I want you just to say, I'm present.

Is that all right? Now I'm going to do the same thing. Letting go of the past. Letting go of the future. Now into the present.

One more for me. I'm present too. Now one more. We're going to open up our field of awareness. And this is really important for listening well because we want to listen with our eyes as well as our ears.

And we're going to talk about that in a minute. But what we're going to do is I want you to fix your eyes right dead center of the camera there. And then just put all of your attention there. For those of you at home, fix your eyes on one spot. Like maybe you're looking right at my nose or something.

And then once you've got your eyes fixed, open up your awareness so that you can see out into your peripheral vision. And once your vision is open and expanded, just give me a little head nod. Okay, me too. And now do the same thing with your hearing. Reach out beyond my voice and hear all the sounds in the room.

Sound of the fan. Sounds in the hallway. And now we're ready to listen. So this is the exercise that I do with clients to make sure that I'm grounded and present. Now if I want to do a quickie and I don't have that much time, what I do is I do the three breaths.

I do three breaths to check out of the future or out of the past. Three breaths out of the future. And then three breaths right in the present moment. And that can reground us very, very quickly. Now this moves us right into the next step.

So when I am with a client, first off I want to make sure I'm fully there. Who here has done a longer conversation with me while you've been here? We did last night. Did you feel like I was fully present? Absolutely.

It's because I was. Now I take a lot of time to make sure that wherever I am, I'm actually there. The brain wants to take you into the past. The brain wants to take you into the future. But what your maximum point of power is in is in the present.

And so when I'm with a client, just having me with them is one of the most powerful things that I can do to help that client transform. It's like, wow, he's with me. Same thing for the client. All change happens inside of a dynamic relationship between the client and the coach. And so change doesn't happen in me.

I don't have magical powers. I wouldn't go up and bless Stacey with my magicness and the power is in Stacey. But she needs help to unlock that change. So the real power happens inside of the relationship. And that happens when we are fully present.

So everybody, put your hand on your heart with me. Here we go. And repeat after me. I promise to be present. If you want to influence people, if you want to maximize the influence that you have, whether it's over a child, whether it's with a spouse, whether it's with a co-worker, whether it's with someone on a team, whether it's someone that you've actually sponsored into the change process, it starts by being fully present.

So there we are. So that's the first piece. Now the second piece is, and this is also kind of my clever extra that I don't really tell my client that I'm doing, part of the reason that I go into expanded awareness, I go into my peripheral vision, is that peripheral vision is designed really not to notice details but to notice movement. So just for example, go ahead and look forward, fix your eyes up there, and then move into your peripheral vision. And we're just going to do a little test here.

Without looking at me, can you tell me how many fingers I've got over here? Three. Three? Okay, that was good. How many do I got?

Can't tell hard, right? Tell me when I move. Moving. Moving. So your flovial vision, right in front of you, is detail vision.

Way out in the edges is going to notice movement. Now this is really useful because the next part of doing listening is to listen with the eyes. Okay, everybody touch your eyes. You want to listen with your eyes. Why?

Because we're going to pick up a lot of body language that's going to tell us a lot. Now we are not mind readers, so we don't associate a single body movement with a specific meaning, but we do notice patterns. And so if we notice something in the hands or feet, it becomes really useful. If we notice a change in our client's breathing rate, it becomes useful. How do you politely watch someone's breath rate?

You can't let go and stare at their shoulders or chest. That is a little creepy. Okay, that's very, very creepy. Do not do that. But if I open up my vision, I can see her breath, I can see her hands, and I can see her feet.

Wiggle your fingers for me. Okay, I can see that. If she moves a foot out or something like that, I can see the movement, or if she starts to wiggle a little bit, I can see that in my open vision. So we want to watch as much with our eyes as we do with our ears. Now we're going to do a little experiment.

Since we have Stacy, since we have you up here, can we do a little bit more? Is that all right? So what we're going to do, we're going to do a little experiment to see if you can start to discern changes in emotion within her. So we're going to ask you to do a little thought experiment. Is that all right?

We're going to have you look at the camera again. Now the action is right here on Stacy, and so I want you guys watching her, if you're here in studio, and just watch her. So just go inside. I want you to think about somebody who you don't like very much. Please don't give us a name.

No, I know. Okay, but don't give us a name, but just think about them. Don't try to change anything. Just notice what happens. Okay, can you see it?

Who can see it? Raise your hand. Okay, there you go. Okay, now just kind of shake that off for a minute. Okay, yeah, yeah.

Okay, ugh, ugh, ha, ha, ha, right? Yeah, there we go. Okay, so we got it. So now here's a question. Again, what did you notice?

Before anyone here in studio answers, I want you to write your answers down at home, because this is important. Learning to train your eye for differences is going to help you understand where your client really is, because a lot of times a client will tell you one thing with their mouth, but they're telling you something else with their face, or they're telling you something else with their hands, or they're telling you something else with their feet. So you really got to watch them with good open vision. Okay, so what did you guys notice here in studio? And let's get, let's actually get a mic.

Where'd the mic go? We may need a, the mic, oh, there you go. Let's make sure it's on. Give us a thumbs up if you can hear it. Okay, it is on.

So what did you notice? The eyes. Okay, what did you notice about the eyes? A little bit of squinting. Okay, so he did it.

Now, interestingly enough, as we're listening to him, and as the camera was on him, notice he did it before he told us what he did. We can say, communication is redundant. Now that doesn't mean that people will necessarily loop back and repeat the same thing over and over and again, but what it means is people will repeat their messages with their body, with their voice tone, and with their words. So if you don't catch it the first time, you're going to catch it over and over and over again as people re-communicate the information that you need to do. So okay, good.

You noticed the eyes. Pass the mic to somebody else. What else did you notice? Tension around her mouth. Tension around her mouth.

Where did you notice the tension? Right along the sides. Did anybody see it in the jaw, too? Okay. Yeah, because in the back, you have a little bit of tension in the jaw, right?

There was like a little bit, I think these are called the masseter muscles, right? They're going just a little bit, right? Yeah, she was probably clenching just a little bit. It's amazing because I didn't know I did any of that. I know.

Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. Okay.

Aimee, what else did you notice? Her nostrils kind of flared. Ooh. Ooh. Okay.

I noticed a couple of things. I missed the nostril flare. What did her nostrils do? Can you show me? Okay.

Now, this is interesting. This kind of movement, it can mean different things, but typically what that is, is a look of disgust. Okay? Typically. That's what we see.

So when you see somebody do something like they're scrunching their nose, like they're really, really smelling something bad, that's like a disgust thing, okay? I don't like to look at you like this. I know, right? Isn't that gross? Yeah?

So it's like, ew, right? Even if it's... Now, the nose can do some things with anger, too, but the most common thing you see when you see the nose do what you just described, when you see it like a scrunching, that's like a disgust thing. That's a micro-expression of disgust. Okay, cool.

So awesome. Okay? Anything else? Did you guys see anything else? Okay, now we're just gonna...

Okay, we're doing good. Keep the mic because we're gonna do some more exercises because this is what we're training our... We're training our mind to listen not only with the ears, not only to the words that people say, but we're learning to listen to a person based on what they're actually doing. So okay. So just kind of shake everything off.

Okay? I like that. You like that? It's fun, isn't it? It's like fun.

Super fun. Okay? Like sometimes I give my dog a run for the money. Right? You know?

Just kind of shake it all out. So what I want you to do now is I want you to go ahead and I want you to think about someone who you really deeply care for and have like all awesome feelings about. Okay? See it? Okay.

That one didn't take long. Right? Who sees it? Raise your hand. Does it look different than the other feeling?

Okay. So emotion shows up in the face. I have really bad news for everybody who's watching this. See, you think you're hiding. You can't hide a thought.

And you certainly can't hide an emotion. It shows up in everything that you do. You will sub-communicate it in your voice tone. You will sub-communicate it in your facial expressions. You will sub-communicate it into your hands.

You think you can control it, but all the research on micro-expressions, these are little flashes of emotion on the face, tell us that part, the part of the brain that governs the face in micro-expressions is completely unconscious. You can learn to control your emotions, but you cannot learn to control your face. So if you feel it, it's showing up on your face. Okay? Touch your face.

Say, please behave. Because it won't. It won't behave. It will give you away. Now some people are a little trickier to read, but they still give little tells.

And when you get really good at it, you can learn to see them. Okay. So now you saw it. Now I want the microphone to go around. What did you notice?

Right? What did you notice at home? You write down, what did we notice here? And then just go ahead and say, this is what I saw. She smiled.

She did smile. Now, here's a tricky question. How do you know if it's a real smile or a fake smile? I think the rest of her face as well, you know, like it was a real smile, her eyebrows, you know, her face uplifted, all of it. Yeah.

I'm going to give you like a super secret mind hack that nobody wants you to know. Is that all right? Yes, please do. Okay. When people smile for real, it does show up in the rest of the face and specifically it shows up in the corners of the eyes.

So the way to distinguish between a real smile and a fake smile is if the eyes smile and you'll see a little crinkling in the corners of the eyes, I think they call those crow's feet sometimes. Right? Women don't want them, but they also tell us if people are actually smiling or if they're like, I can't even do it. Like fake smiling. Right?

Yeah. Well, you see people do it. They're like, oh, I'm so happy for you. Right? They're not.

Right? Because the eyes aren't crinkling. Right? So it was a real smile. Her whole face smiled and she got little crinkles for a second.

You got crinkles. Oh my gosh. Super precious. Right? Okay.

So that's fun. So that is how we could tell that she was smiling. So she smiled with the face, showed up in the mouth first, and like it showed up in the eyes. Her eyes were smiling. Okay.

So now what else? What else did you notice? Pass the mic to someone else. What'd you see? Unlike her posture, you know kind of like what changed in her pocket a little bit Taller happier, you know a little bit straighter.

So she like her posture changed just a little bit Yeah, it's like not an angry posture. It's like a Content like happiness. Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't tend in a happy posture. Okay, somebody else pass the mic.

What else did you notice? Anybody no, okay, that's good. So let's go ahead now we're gonna do a little experiment because we're learning to listen with the eyes Not only With the ears, we're gonna talk about the ears here in a minute We're gonna look talk about voice tone in particular But so now what we're gonna do is I want you to shake off shake off the happiness Shake off the head. We're gonna come we may come back around to it. Don't worry.

I'll make sure you leave happy Is that all right? Okay, this is gonna be awesome. Awesome. But what you need to look at the camera member Okay, this is where all of the action is right in her face here and Stacy What I want you to do is without telling us I want you to pick one of the two people and just think about them I can't decide I know Okay, just pick one doesn't matter which one and don't try to do anything. Just notice what happens.

I know we are watching Okay, you got it that's right now we got a guess, okay, and we're gonna have everybody here in the studio guess But I want you to guess at home. Okay Which one was it because we want to learn to distinguish between one and the other now just kind of shake it up Okay, so which one was it? What do you think? Right, which one was it and you can guess wrong. Okay, everybody put your hand on your heart Repeat after me.

I give myself permission to be wrong I'm playing and learning. Okay, is that good? So, okay. So what'd you get? What'd you see?

He's like The person that you like Okay. Now that was the guest. Now. The question is why did you guess that and why didn't you guess something else? It was the smile I wasn't fully convinced to the smile because it wasn't as much of a smile as the first time She was hiding it a little bit hard to distinguish.

Where did the smile show up? It showed up differently this time in the corners of the mouth corners of the mouth and a little bit in the eyes It wasn't as obvious as the first time but the eyes were like a little smiling Yeah, they were absolutely but it showed up first in the corners of the mouth that I noticed that's where I saw it's like she's thinking to send something happy Okay, so it showed up right in the corners of the mouth and it was a symmetrical smile not an asymmetrical smile Right, which is one of the other things we look for because like usually contempt shows up is a lopsided a lopsided smile Right a one-sided smile. There wasn't contempt. There was a nice even smile, right? So she wasn't showing us contempt.

She was showing us Happiness very small sign because she was trying to hide it a little bit. Is that all right? Yeah You pulled back just a little bit. Yeah interesting, isn't it? Yeah.

So sometimes the cues are really subtle Did anybody else notice anything else? It's okay. If you did, it's okay if you didn't Nope. Okay, so we're gonna go again and we're gonna do a little different experiment. Okay, is that all right?

That was a micro expression of fear I Know isn't that fun? Did you see it to rewind the camera? You'll see this little thing like Okay, no, so all we're gonna do is I want you to think about a place I want you to think about a place and this place is going to be either a place that you love or your hate Okay, and that's it. But you're not gonna tell us not verbally You're going to tell us just by thinking about it and you're not gonna do anything natural or a nation It's a little weird when we're telling you about it and you're on camera in a studio with like lights and stuff, right? but I want you just to think about a place that you either like or dislike and then we're going to notice if we can Already distinguish between like and dislike just based off of listening very carefully with our eyes Is that all right?

And this is the last this is the last like exercise that I'll have you do up here Okay, but I really appreciate you coming up. Okay, it's like super awesome. Thank you. Okay, so okay, so go ahead look at the camera So that way everybody gets a nice if we get a close-up here on her again so that we can see the face and then Just think about a place either that you like a lot or that you hate a lot. Are you really just like strongly dislike?

Okay, there we go now Here's the question. Can you did you see it? Raise your hand if you saw something at least Maybe you don't know what you saw, but you saw something -huh. I know well, you're not getting better. You're just doing what you're doing, right?

So raise your hand if you saw something Okay. Now raise your hand if you're not sure what it means. Be honest. Okay, you're not sure but you saw something There's two parts to learning to listen with your eyes. The first one is just seeing it now Here's the super awesome thing and we're not doing this in this exercise It's like when you're actually having a conversation with somebody if they do some body language thing You don't have to be like a master wizard at first.

You're like She just frowned and crinkled her nose, right? I wonder what that means Sometimes when I'm listening with a client what I'll do is I'll say hey, I just noticed you frowned and crinkled your nose Like what was that about? Right, or it looked like you might have been feeling something, but I'm not sure what it was Can you tell me a little bit about that? And guess what if you've got a good connection if they actually sense that you're fully present and you're listening most of the time They're gonna tell you they're gonna tell you right so you don't have to be a wizard But right now we just want to see if we can figure it out just by watching and the more you do this the better You'll get okay. So raise your hand if you saw something.

Okay, pass the mic to somebody who saw something back here to Samira, what did you see the emotion or her actions? What just describe the action first and then try to put a label on it Try to say this is what I think I was seeing. Okay. I saw a stern look in her eyes and Again, okay, so I'm gonna pause you for a minute. You said a stern look in your eyes now I want you to describe that from like a What I saw was what she was Imagining something in front of her and she was really like looking at or I don't know but the stern look, you know fixated look.

Yeah, and it was quite stern. She nodded And then she had not a smile, but almost like not a grim but something in between So it says to me that was a negative thought and you know The way she affirmed it with her head movement was just like, okay She's taking something on if you know what I mean, okay, so notice and what Samira by the way Samira Let's run applause for okay, whether you're right or wrong doesn't matter But we want to we want to just applaud you for stepping out and saying I'm learning. I'm learning, right? So notice that in Samira's description there were there was like a fusion of two things she was fusing This is what I saw and this is what it meant right now, so it's important to be able to first train your eye to see and then train your eye to Interpret or turn your mind to interpret and to be open to being wrong. Are you open to being wrong?

Yeah, are you open to being right too? Yeah. Okay. Okay, so we can all be right or wrong Who else saw something a little bit different? Okay, raise your hand if you think you saw something different Okay, go ahead and tell us every round of applause for him here.

Here we go. Okay So, what'd you what'd you see I could definitely tell that it was like a Negative, but it was more like a kind of a bring it on. Okay, but hang on. So we're writing a judgment Yeah, right in a judgment about it. What did you see that led you to think that it was negative?

it was the Obviously the mouth but a little bit of like the squinting in the eyes like a what did you see in the mouth a Little bit of a smirk almost like a little bit of a grin, but it wasn't like a happy grin It was a happy grin. Yeah opinion. Okay good. And then what do you see in the eyes? Like a squint almost like a squint like yeah, okay a squint.

Okay. Now we're gonna ask her Was it a positive place or negative place? It was both positive. It was mixed. I was deciding right and So I think she was right because then I was like I allowed myself to go there Yeah, I think was the nod right if I remember what my mental process, you know And it was but then I let myself go to the good place.

Then you went to the good place. Yeah, it was like which one which one? Okay, and then you settled on a good place You settled on a good place at the end. So everybody put your hand in your heart It's okay to be wrong Okay, and you also want to remember that you don't want to interpret too quickly You just want to notice what's there and then do a check-in notice what's there and then Check in right so we notice and then we check and so that's exactly what we're doing So everybody what we're gonna do we're gonna give her a huge round of applause. Okay, we just got done learning to listen with the eyes We're just starting.

We're just starting the process of learning to listen with the eyes. Everybody round of applause for Stacy. Yeah Okay, thank you, thank you and so we what we do is first thing we do is we ground into the present moment And we're fully there. Let go of the past. Let go of the future Here I am.

Right? I am in my body My vision is nice and open and I am fully present and aware of what's going on right fully present and aware of the of that moment and then What we do is we listen with our eyes now here's a here is a not so tricky question if there is a discrepancy between what the Words are and What the person is telling you? What is more what is more important information to pay attention to like where should you put your attention on what they say? Or on what they do Body language, okay Not part of the time all of the time. The body language is going to give you the real message Okay, now we're going to go through a little listening exercise where we listen for voice tone because after we listen with the eyes We want to train our ear to hear changes in tone We want to hear changes in rhythm when I hear changes when a person Literally sits on a word with more emphasis or on a word with more emphasis or in a group of words with more emphasis Okay, and so what we're going to do is we're going to do another little listening it listening It's just excuse me another little listening exercise if that's all right So I'm going to need somebody who wants to have an interesting experience who wants to come up, okay?

You want to hobble on up here for us? Okay? Yeah, I know he's a and we're going to need you to hold the mic up close to your close to your mouth now for this exercise once we actually get into the exercise, I'm going to have everyone close their eyes and Listen with the eyes closed because the action in this case is on his voice tone And we want to train our ear to hear when I train our ear to hear what the client is really Saying because if we listen carefully the client will emphasize Certain words by sitting on those words extra heavy, and that's where we want to put our attention and put our focus Okay, is that all right? So what we're going to have you do is we're going to have you tell us a Story that's happened to you like in the last Week, let's say okay something simple nothing. How about your injury story?

Sure, okay, but we wanted to be short so not too long and I mean do I have permission to stop you before you're done Sure. Okay. So what you need to look at the camera? Okay, and I want you to pretend like the camera's your best friend Who's your best friend? My brother Greg.

Okay, so there's Greg right there. Just staring back at you. Hey, Greg. How you doing? All right, wave at him here for me.

What's up, right? There he is. And all I want you to do is just tell a story Tell the story of the ankle to Greg and I'm going to pause you every once in a while because really we're we're Interested in the story right now and we're more interested in training our ear. What I want you to listen for is when he will sit on a certain word with a little bit more emphasis and You're gonna do that with your eyes closed. So everybody close your eyes close your eyes Okay, if you're at home close your eyes and I want you to listen and just go ahead and tell the story so the way I hurt my knee was getting onto my mountain bike and It's not even really that cool of a story but really what happened was I Went to get on my mountain bike and I put my foot on the pedal and as I pushed the pedal down Ever so slightly the chain slipped it fell off Causing me to fall off balance and completely tip over and crunch my knee and that's how I got injured Okay, cool.

Now. We're just gonna open your eyes Okay, now there's no right or wrong here, but what words did you hear that he emphasized with a little bit more Emphasis, what'd you hear? Okay, I'm in Ever so slightly was a phrase that stood out to you. What did he do with his voice? Did his voice tone go up or does voice tone go down?

Do you remember? It was like more a little more quiet or sometimes they'll slow down right sometimes they'll slow down It was like more a little more quiet or sometimes they'll slow down right something like that, right? So you heard a little bit of a quieting. Is that right? I'm understanding you Okay, who else heard something raise your hand.

Okay. What else did you hear? Slip Yeah So he took the word slipped any sent that word just a little bit longer. That was what I noticed it Okay, that's really good. Okay, who else what else you notice and I'll just repeat back since they're quick comments He said he was getting on his mountain bike.

It was kind of drawn out like yeah Like well that you're interpreting it as you're interpreting regret. But what you heard was what? It was drawn out. I got on my mountain bike and he drew it out, right? So, there we go.

That was something else that he did. Okay, what else did you hear? Okay So you heard it go down then you're to go up that's really important when you hear something like that, okay, that's cool Who heard things they probably wouldn't have heard if their eyes had been open be honest and you weren't paying attention Yeah, so you do this by literally Listening to people a great place to do this is to like listen to audio listen to people telling stories Listen to this module and just listen for where people sit on a word or Emphasize a word. They're literally telling you what's important to them based on The tonality changes the speed changes and the verbal emphasis now What we're gonna do is we're gonna do a little exercise where we listen for what I call the heart space Okay, and we're gonna listen for it. So I'm gonna ask people to close their eyes now You could see it, but I want you to train I want to train you to listen with your with your ears not for the words, but for the tonality So it's almost like relax the words out of your mind and just listen for when the voice goes in this case Down and the voice will sound breathier.

Okay, I'm gonna demonstrate so like when I drop down into my heart space I might say it's something like love Do you hear that? Okay, that's kind of what it sounds like to go into heart space when you hear something that's like love No, love It's different, right? So we're gonna be sorting for heart space. Somebody close your eyes if you're at home close your eyes You're training your ear to listen and I'm gonna ask you some questions about your why is that? All right, sure So think about a goal you have Okay, okay and you don't need to tell us what it is but tell me why is that goal important to you Because of what it will do for the people I'm doing it for so what it will do For the people that you're doing it for it.

Yeah, and Just think about the people Why are those people important to you Because they're my parents. They're your parents. I love them. I love them. Yeah.

Yeah and Love is important for you clearly. Yeah, so just think about it Yeah, so just connect with that feeling of love for a moment And this might almost sound like a silly question, but why is love? important for you It's what makes the world go around yeah, it's what makes the world go around but why is it important for you Because of how it feels to me and how it feels to other people how I know it affects my parents how you know, it affects your parents. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, just think about how it affects you How that feels maybe a recent time when you had that experience of really feeling the love Yeah for your parents What's that like Deep it's emotional Last weekend was my dad's birthday. So it was it was really great connecting with him on his birthday. And so Definitely very meaningful, right? Connecting is meaningful, isn't it? It is.

Yeah. So tell me why is connecting? With your dad so meaningful He's my dad, I mean, I love him he's my dad and I Don't know what else there is to say about that, you know, he's my dad. He's your dad and I love him Yeah, yeah more than anything. Yeah now this will sound strange, but I just I want you to stay with me for a minute Sure, is it okay if I ask you another why absolutely?

Yeah But really why? Why is that love important to you? Well I feel like love is the most important thing in life. Love is the most it's the most important thing in life and it starts with love of self and love of your parents love of your family and your Friends and so on and so forth. Yeah Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna pause for a minute everybody round of applause for him first Okay So here's the question when first off raise your hand if you think you got in a heart space Okay, we're doing if you don't think you did. Okay, anybody don't think you did. Okay So now what did you hear that led you think that he was actually like in his heart space? What did you hear in his voice? Let's give you the give you the mic here for a second.

I think it did lower it was like smooth It became smoother. His didn't go real low real quiet, which tells me we could probably could have gone farther. Okay? Okay, which is okay, but you heard his voice get lower and like more sincere who felt like there was a sincere without being able to define it felt Like there was a more sincere quality to his voice after a little bit, right? When did you hear the voice shift?

This is the key question. When did the voice shift? Let's practice pass to the bike Samira when he said the phrase because they're my parents and I love them Because they're my parents and I love them. Yeah the first time he said that yeah, didn't it sound really sincere? Yeah, what quality did you hear in the voice right then?

Well, how would you describe it? You're not me, right? Just what you I thought it was full of emotion. It felt it like it sounded like it was full of emotion Yeah, what emotion would you put on that? No, I'm not knowing if you're right or wrong Probably genuine love or attachment, but something very heartfelt, you know, like, you know, something he holds close to him Yeah, yeah, not a sad emotion, but you know Touching emotion a touching emotion.

Yeah, that's really nice. Thank you. Everybody run applause for him here. Okay? Now the trick is to maintain that same level of awareness when The eyes are open One of the things that I'm sorting for is I ask people questions and this is very useful as a coach Maybe later on I'll demonstrate how I use this as I'm diving into the training into like the core of a problem.

I don't know if we'll have time to do that, but one of the things I'm listening for is I'm listening for the words that get extra emphasis from the voice and then I follow those words like a chain. You actually just heard me doing that. If you go back through the replay and you watch what I did, you'll hear me feeding back to him the words that I thought he was sitting on. It doesn't mean I'm right, doesn't mean I'm wrong, just means those are the words I'm hearing and then I feed them back and then very quickly you end up right at the heart and that's how you get to the heart of a matter very quickly, which then allows you to help the person take the next step forward and really get a big change in their life. Okay, so awesome sauce.

Let's give him a huge round of applause. Thank you. Thank you for coming up. Okay, we'll let him hobble back. Thank you for hobbling up.

Appreciate that. So now let me just go ahead and write this up. So we, number one, we listen, we're fully present. The second thing that we do is we open up our vision and we're opening up into peripheral vision, right, so that we can see everything that's going on around us and then after we open up our vision then we listen for voice tone. We're gonna go through a couple more, a couple more things here that I think that will really aid you.

I could teach on this for another hour, but I want to make sure we keep this concise and give you some real practical things. But who already feels like they're gonna listen differently next time they're in front of somebody? Raise your hand. Okay, what are you gonna do different? Okay, I want to actually hear from a couple of you before we go on.

What are you gonna do different next time you're in front of somebody? Let's pass the microphone back to Ame. Pay attention more to like how they're saying things and like slow down and kind of look at what they're actually doing when they talk. So you're gonna slow down and listen to the way they're saying things because the way people say things matters a lot, doesn't it? Okay, really good.

Round of applause for her. Okay, who else? What are you gonna do different? Pay a lot more attention to body language. I think that's really important.

Yeah, pay a lot more attention to body language. As a guy, you'll pick up things that you didn't pick up before just by learning to pay attention. Is it okay if I go out tonight, honey? Yes. She said yes, I'm totally fine.

I'm good to go. I don't understand why she's mad when I came home. She told me yes. Well, she said yes with her mouth and no with her body language. And guys too, that's just me getting in trouble in the past before I learned some of these things, right?

So yeah, it's totally fine that we skip date night to go out and go bowling with the guys. She's fine with it, right? She said yes, right? Okay, so you listen for voice tone. Now here's a fourth principle for listening and this is one that you can't really, again, it's not really a technique.

I can teach you some technique things but these things will go a lot farther than any technique that I could teach you. It's more about just learning to be present and be observant, right? If we're really narrowing it down to things. So the fourth thing that we're going to be talking about is we're going to be talking about an attitude. So there's an attitude behind really effective listening and the attitude is I want to connect with you.

I want to connect with you deeply and profoundly. So let's just do a little exercise. I need one more person to kind of pop up. Ame, Ame, come on up. Oh my gosh, round of applause.

Here we go. There she is. Okay, you want to be on my right or my left? Okay, right over here. Okay, we're going to look over here and we're going to go ahead and what we're going to do is we're actually just going to face each other slightly.

Okay, that way the camera can still see us, right? So just face each other slightly here and actually I'm going to have you put your gun like in your hand or something that's a little gross or swallow it or something like that. What do you want to do? Okay, sorry. That was a micro expression of disgust in case you're wondering.

Okay, she did not like doing that. Okay, but we appreciate you getting rid of your gun. Okay, so because it'll mess with the body language. Is that all right? So what we're going to do is we're going to pretend that we're in a situation where we need to listen to each other deeply and all we're going to do is we're going to think the thought, I want to hear you.

Nothing more. I am here to hear you. Okay, and so we're not going to do any verbals. We're going to let you guys look for the non-verbals and notice what are we doing and let you look for the non-verbals too. What are we doing as we move into that space of I want to hear you.

Okay, is that all right? Okay, so just go ahead and in your mind when you've got it give us a little head nod. Okay, what did you notice? What did you notice about the non-verbals? What happened?

Did you notice? Raise your hand if you didn't notice anything. It's okay if you didn't. Okay, that's all right. Okay, it looked calm.

Let's do it one more time. There's no right or wrong. We may not be showing a lot. Okay, but just look. I want to hear you.

Yeah, there it is again. Okay, did you see it or feel it? Raise your hand if you did that time. Okay, let's pass her the mic. Okay, what did you see?

Well, I saw the eye contact. The eye contact? And when you both sort of agreed on something or agreed that you're connected or something, I don't know, but you know, there was a physical nod. There was like a physical nod. There were other little tells too.

I saw them in her and I felt them in me. Okay, so this is one where I want you guys to go back and watch the replay. But this is not something, and we're gonna give her a round of applause. Round of applause for her. Okay, she's doing awesome.

Thank you. Okay, so when this is, this is not something that you may necessarily be able to see right away. I definitely saw it in her. Okay, there is a moment when the person becomes ready and available to the other person. There's different types of listening.

One type of listening is I want to listen so that I can manipulate you into doing what I want. Have you ever been in a conversation like that? Raise your hand. Come on, be honest. Have you ever done that to somebody?

Okay, yeah, me too, right? Me too. Not often, but I have my moments, right? So, or I want to listen to respond. Like, I want to defend myself, right, as you're talking to me because I don't like what you're saying, right?

So I'm just listening for, like, you to stop breathing so I can, like, leap in and, like, you know, and, like, get you, right? So the attitude is I'm here for you. I'm open. I love you. And if you can get into that emotional state by thinking the words or by thinking about someone you love, you become very, very available for the person that's listening to you.

And that alone, just putting yourself into state where you're in a state of gratitude and openness and willingness and readiness, that will do more for your listening than any technique that you'll ever learn. If you want to get awesome at listening, just be ready, willing, open, and fully present, and then open up your eyes and ears, and you'll have most of it. Now, there's more I could teach you about listening. The only other thing that I'm going to say, and I'm not going to really demonstrate it because I already demonstrated it, maybe I'll do a real fast demo. But this is the last point that I wanted to cover for now, and then we're done with the segment, is repeat hot words.

And if you're summarizing, you want to summarize using the hot words that you hear. You don't have to summarize everything perfectly. You can paraphrase a lot, but the pieces that you actually want to feedback just like they gave them to you are the hot words that they gave you. I did this earlier when I was listening to him, right? So we already have one demo.

Let's do a real fast one, like two minutes, then we're going to button things up here and move on to the next piece. But who else wants to have an interesting experience? Okay, pop on up. Go and set your stuff down. Round of applause for him.

There we go. Glad he's coming up. Okay, this is awesome. So what we're going to do now is we're going to go ahead and I want you just to tell me a little bit about your goal. I'm going to ask you some questions.

I'm not going to use the same 5Y format like I've been doing, but I want you just to talk about your goal. I may interrupt you, but I'm interrupting you with a purpose. Is that all right? So that we demonstrate something specific. Mainly, I want you to listen to, I want you to notice in my body language, am I present and am I just basically sending out through my vibes something like, I love you, I'm open to you, I'm here for you.

Okay, and if I don't say something like that, I want you to let me know afterwards. But I'm going to put myself into that state and without trying to do anything, without techniquing him, I'm just going to be available and open to him. Available, open and present. And then as he speaks, what I'm going to do is I'm going to feedback periodically hot words and key words and just notice what happens to the conversation. Is that all right?

Yeah. Should I grab a mic? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks, thanks, thanks. Mic, where's the mic?

Okay, remember, like a rock star, so you've got to hold it up tight. We'll have you singing here tonight. So just go ahead and tell me a little bit about, tell me a little bit about your goal. My goal is to travel the world, be able to help people during the process of it and just learn new things. Yeah, you want to really travel the world and help people while you do new things.

Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about that. Well, for some reason, I have this wanderlust of seeing the world and all of its beauty. And I've had this thing on my heart to help people that are misfortunate or don't have the courage to go follow their dreams. And I want to inspire that in people through traveling and doing it.

So wanderlust. Yeah. That's really deeply connected to your heart, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

How long has that been true? For as long as I can remember, I always had like this want to help and want to, I guess, make people feel good, you know? Right. Yeah. You want to help people feel good.

Yeah. You've mentioned that several times. Tell me a little, just a little bit more about that. You know, it just makes you feel good when you can give other people that feeling. You know, when you can contribute to others, it gives you also that good feeling, you know?

Nice. Yeah. We're going to go and stop right there. Just a short demo. Now, here's the question.

And this is a question for the audience at home and the audience here. First off, was I present? Okay. Did anybody notice when I spaced out for a quick second? Anybody catch it?

I did. It wasn't long. It was a fraction of a second. And then I came right back. Okay.

Now, but I was mostly present. Okay. I was mostly present there. Now, here's the next question. What kind of attitude was coming from me?

Like, what kind of attitude would you put on that as you were watching my body language? How would you label it? Raise your hand. Let's actually start with you. How would you label that?

That you actually cared and you wanted to know more. That I cared and I wanted to know more. And so that right there is what will shut people down or it will open people wide up. It is not a technique that you do. The only way that I know of to do it, like if you don't actually care deeply for the person yet, and this is maybe true like in first coaching session, is I imagine somebody who I love.

I think about my wife. I think about my kids. I think about my mom. And then I just get that feeling. And then I look at them and I just try to say with my eyes, I'm here for you.

I'm available. I'm open. I love you. And that right there, you'll watch me go into situation after situation, event after event. I'll be talking to people that I've never met and people will blossom up, blossom open and just start opening up and really deeply connecting with me over and over and over again.

And it's not a technique that I'm doing. It is the technique, if anything, of being genuine, present and open. Who learned something? Raise your hand. Awesome.

Let's give him a huge round of applause for being here. Go and sit down and we're going to wrap this up just in a quick second. Out of this entire list, what is the least important thing that you do? What do you think? Five.

This is the thing that everybody emphasizes. I think it is an important skill. You can get good at it. You can also drive people like batty doing this. Who's ever been on the receiving end of like too much repeating back, right?

I've probably done it sometimes too, right? So like you can do this too much from a techniquey, not genuine sort of way. If you get one and four right, even if you make some mistakes, people will give you a wide berth to make those mistakes because true listening is not a technique. True listening is presence and attitude. If you do that, everything will change.

My challenge to you today is find one person that you can deeply and genuinely listen to using everything that you just learned and watch how the conversation completely goes in a new direction. I believe in you and I believe in your ability to change people's lives and it starts by making yourself available to change.