00:00 

You're listening to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 5, "Learning to Listen." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Well hey there, welcome back. I am so glad that you're here today. I have been doing some work and I'm going to be talking today about learning to listen. Listening is one of those most valuable skills that we need to have to have a really healthy relationship but it can be so challenging because so much can get lost in translation. And so today we're going to talk about how to not translate incorrectly. How do we get the right translation and how do we really start to understand what people are saying and how do we develop these really good listening skills. 

01:02 

I know for me I was never a very good listener and I think because it wasn't really modeled in my home very much. My parents were wonderful, great people but we did not sit around and have in-depth discussions and so I didn't really see a lot of listening modeled, and because of that I just really didn't know how to do it. And then I got married and I still was not a good listener and I was more concerned about being heard than I was about listening and understanding and hearing what was going on, and that obviously created a lot of issues within my marriage. 

01:39 

And then I went through some John Maxwell training around about the same time that I got divorced and I started learning about how to be a good listener and was shocked at some of the things that I was learning and what I was understanding and I loved it. And I actually hit a point where I started to have people tell me that I was a good listener and I was like "what?" because I'd never had that before ever. I'd never been told that I was a good listener. And all of a sudden I was being told that I was and I thought "wow, you know what? I've learned a very very important skill," which if I'm going to be a life coach, listening is one of those skills that I really need to be good at. 

02:19 

But here's some reasons all those years that I was never a good listener. For one, I was not listening to hear, I was listening to respond because I thought that I would have something clever to say. So I was getting caught up in my pride, right? Another reason I was not a good listener is because I was listening in order to defend my position, defend my my point of view. I was getting caught up in my fear. There were other times that I was listening to try and manipulate the conversation or to control the responses of other people, again, getting caught up in my own personal fears. And another reason that I was not a good listener was because I was always trying to one-up and say, "oh, well, you think that's an experience. Listen to mine." Right. Again, a very prideful response. So I was getting caught up in my pride. 

03:11 

And this is what I've realized: that when I am not a good listener, it's because I'm being very selfish. Those are all very selfish responses to having a conversation with someone. And I may be looking for validation, I may be doing something else, but very selfish. And so at this point, I need to start asking, well, why do I engage in conversations with others? And I can say that that for me has changed immensely in the last several years for me. And I have really, really started to learn how to have better emotional connections with people. And a huge part of that starts off with being able to be a good listener. And so I think that as my listening skills have increased substantially over the last several years, so has my emotional intelligence, my ability to have these emotional connections with people. 

04:05 

So why do I engage in conversations with others? I do it because I want to strengthen my relationship and my intimacy with that person. I do it because I want to validate them, I want to help build them and strengthen them. And sometimes I even do it because I need to validate myself. And I don't think that's always bad, but I think that can't always be my motive there.  But we do engage in conversations because we want these relationships with other people. And so good listeners have to come from a place of compassion. If we don't feel compassion, it's going to be very hard for us to be a good listener. Good listeners are seeking to understand the other person and they're seeking to really connect with the other person, and those are both compassionate responses. Being a great listener is one of the best ways to start creating intimate emotional relationships, which is what most of us really hunger for, are these connections with people where we just feel like like we're heard and we feel like we hear the other person and we can respect the other person. 

05:15 

So let's talk about about something that I think is really cool here. Brooke Castillo from the Life Coaching School, which is which is where I'm getting my second life coach certification, she teaches that there are four things that happen when we listen. I love this because it goes right along with the model that she teaches and that I teach as well. So the model, if you remember, starts off with...we have circumstances at the top and those circumstances cause us to have a thought. That thought then causes us to have feelings. Those feelings then create actions, and those actions then create the results in our lives. 

05:53 

So here's what happens, there's four layers of something that's happening when we listen. So the first layer is what a person intends to say. So I have an intention, I want to say something. Number two is what I actually say. Because very often how I say it does not come out the way that I meant it to come out. The third step is what the other person hears. And the fourth step is how they interpret what I hear. 

06:27 

And this is where we often stop and we get hung up because we stop on my interpretation of what they say instead of really listening to what they are saying or what they really intended to say. So the circumstance here would be what they actually say. Because that is the fact of what I can actually hear. And then the thought then becomes how I interpret what they say. Because then how I interpret that is then the cause of the emotion or the feeling, the emotional response that I have to what they said. 

07:05 

Alright, so this whole situation reminds me a lot of the telephone game. Remember that where you were a kid, you'd all sit in a circle, and one person would whisper something to the person next to them, and that person would turn and whisper the same thing to the person next to them, and that person would turn and whisper, and it would go around, and you'd get to the end of the circle, and the last person would say out loud what they ended up hearing, and it was always something so completely ridiculously different than what the original person said. So much gets lost in the translation. And so it's really important that to keep this misinterpretation or misunderstanding from happening. 

07:44 

We cannot stop when we figure out how we interpret what they say. This can be really hard to do in the moment and especially when we're first starting at being a good listener. So the best place to start is by analyzing it after the conversation happens. So first of all we need to figure out what they actually said. So we need to go back to step two. What did they actually say? That is our circumstance. And then we need to take it back to step one and say what think what did they intend to say? And if we're doing this after the conversation then we can't ask them. That would obviously be the best option is in the course of the discussion or the conversation that we say "okay, so let me clarify" and repeat that and try and figure out what they really intended to say. But if we're doing this afterwards we just need to start by saying "what did they intend? What do I think that they really wanted to say?" 

08:44 

So let me give you an example. Probably about 10 years ago, so I was in my early 40s, I was talking with a couple from our ward, really, really nice couple, and he said something about me being outspoken. And I was, surprisingly, I was a little taken aback. I was like, "what? Outspoken?" In the 40 years of my life, I had never considered myself outspoken. Now, if you are anybody who has known me all growing up, you're probably like, "what? Of course she's outspoken. Of course she always says what she wants to say." But at the time, I had never considered myself as outspoken. As I've looked back on my life, I go, "okay, yeah, I can see that." And I can see even at a very young age that I was speaking my mind. But at the time, it was a revelation to me. And I was like, "what? I'm outspoken.""" And then I went through this whole process of thinking, well, what does he mean by that? Because outspoken kind of has a negative connotation to it. Now, if I say that somebody speaks their mind or somebody gives their opinion, that comes with a lot more positive feeling associated with it. But  outspoken comes with a little bit of negative. And I had to start asking myself, well, what was he saying by that? 

10:05 

So the point is, at this point, I have to start trying to go into his brain and not my brain. My brain would be saying, "oh my gosh, he's like so rude. He's saying that I'm just mean to people or that I, you know, I just say things without thinking," which is true as well. But I could go there and I could go into defensive mode. But it's not my brain that holds the truth here, it would be his brain. So I need to learn to go into his brain. And I need to start saying, "well, what was the intention of him saying that?" And that requires a lot more compassion for me. It's very easy for us to jump right into defensive mode, it's a lot more difficult for us to slow down and to look at these situations with a compassionate heart. 

10:53 

So as I started looking at that situation where he told me I was outspoken from a more compassionate heart, I started to realize that, "oh you know what, I think he is giving me a compliment. He is trying to just say that you do speak your mind." For me I think that's a good thing, right. So I could go back to his intention. His intention was not to hurt my feelings, it was not to say something that was going to offend me at all. And so going back to the intention of what they actually wanted to say is a huge step in figuring out how to be a better listener. 

11:35 

Let me give you another example. Just a little bit ago I went on a trip with my daughter. She's in high school. So as we're getting ready to go she just says "well, mom just kind of pretend like you don't know me," and though she was kind of joking, there was an element of "okay, mom, but like like keep your distance. I don't want you there." At first I was a little bit like what? I mean, I don't look horrible. I don't dress sloppy. I do my hair and I wear makeup. I'm a nice person and all this stuff. And it would have been very easy for me to jump on that and say "oh my gosh, she thinks I'm a horrible mom," or "she's trying to be mean to me," or whatever. But with her it was easy for me to go back and try and figure out "well, what is her brain trying to say" and because I taught at the middle school that she went to, I think that she just felt like she needed her space. You know, to be connected with me so closely at a school that she went to and now she's in a school that I'm not at, and so for her to be able to have her own space, her own identity is probably a very important thing for her. So I don't think she was trying to insult me or be mean to me. I think in her mind she was saying "I just really kind of like my space here and I like my own identity." So I was fine with that. 

13:06 

So there were two buses and I rode on the bus that she didn't ride on and and several times in the course of the day she came up and gave me a hug or came up and talked to me. So it was all good, but she did need her space. It would be very easy for me to look at what she said, the "just pretend like you don't know me" and and interpret that with my own ideas of what she was meaning, right? And if I had stopped there I could have felt bad/ I could have felt a little bit put off by what she said and thought that maybe she was being rude or something. Yet her intention was not to be rude at all. Her intention is that, "you know what, I'm growing up I need my space," and so that's all good. 

13:54 

So this is the dea.l If we don't have an opportunity to ask them what they're saying, we need to really make space for the idea of figuring out what was their intention when they said that. The best we can do is to ask them why they're saying it and then they can clarify. So while they're talking, if there's something that is not sitting well we can say "okay, when you said this go ahead and explain that to me again exactly what you meant by that?" And that gives them a chance to talk about what their intention of what they wanted to say was so we can be more clear. So listening. It really means that we're listening for the intention. We're trying to really understand what they meant, and not always the literal meaning of what they're saying. So we need to stop listening to just the words, and we need to start getting into their intentions, and into their thoughts, and into their feelings. 

14:57 

And being more compassionate with that, compassion really has a huge part of what's going on here when we're trying to listen to strengthen relationships. So we need to start saying, what's going on in their brain? And we need to just start asking questions, and being more clear. And then we also need to start asking questions about our thoughts as well. Why are we having those thoughts? So this is some things that I learned when I went through my coaching with my first coaching with the John Maxwell team. I found that for me, I have two different kinds of coaching at this stage. So I did learn to be a really, really good listener, how to focus on what was being said, the thoughts, the feelings, the ideas behind that, and it was really, really great. 

15:45 

But I found that at this stage, I have two kinds of listening. I have a coach listening, which does not involve me on a personal level at all. So it's very easy for me to stand on the outside, and to listen, and to not start putting my own interpretation of what's going on. So that step number four that says how I interpret what they say, it's very easy. It's much easier for me to not get personally involved in that. Because when I'm coaching someone, I'm not personally involved in their situation. But then I also have a friend listening part of me. And in that, I'm much more invested, and it's harder for me to consider their intentions because I get very emotionally involved. And sometimes our emotions get so big that it's hard for us to work around them, to get back to that that part of the intentions. 

16:41 

So several weeks ago I had a friend come over who wanted to talk to me about a situation. And after about two or three minutes I said "okay, wait. I just have to stop for a second. Do you want me to be listening here as a friend or do you want me to be listening as a coach?" Because for me those are two very different kinds of listening. When I'm coach listening, my heart is not emotionally invested in what's going on. Obviously I care a lot about the people that I coach and I want what is best for them, but I'm not emotionally invested in the sense that I am as a friend. So I distance my thinking a little bit from that. But friend listening, friends need people to just have a different skill set as far as listening goes. And that's where most of us jump into this, but it's easy to get too emotionally involved. 

17:35 

But let's talk about two bad things that we really do when we listen that make it very difficult for us to be good listeners. The first one is that we tend to tune out. I think most of us do this a lot because it's easy to do. So a couple of things. First of all, we just need to start noticing when we tune out. If I catch myself talking to someone and all of a sudden I'm thinking about something else, I need to just notice it. "Not judge, not say I'm horrible for doing that, but just go, huh, I just tuned out."" And then ask myself the question, well, where did I go? What was I thinking about?" So maybe I could say, this isn't as important as what I'm dealing with, so this other thought is taking precedence in my brain. Or maybe in my head I'm thinking, "well, I've already heard you tell this story before." Or I may be distracted by another conversation and I may be thinking, "oh, their conversation over there seems a lot more fun and engaging," right? So I may find myself tuning out that way. That's not a good listening skill, but I think it's something that all of us engage in. 

18:46 

Another one that all of us engage in that is not a really good listening skill is interrupting. Again, the first thing we need to do is start noticing when I interrupt. And then I need to start saying, "why am I interrupting? What is going on in my brain?" And this takes some real self-discipline to start thinking about this and to start looking at ourselves in a way that may show us some things that we don't really like to see. So for example, we may interrupt because we're thinking, "I have a really, really great thought here and I don't want to forget it, so I'm just going to stick it in because I know that you're going to want to hear this thought that I have." Or we may say in our heads, "I think I know where you're going with this and I don't like this, so I'm just gonna change the subject." We might say, "oh, I could say that's so much better than you and so we kind of jump in and take over the conversation. We might think that, "oh, you know, I really don't care what you think." So in that case, we're not listening with compassion either or maybe we're thinking, "I just really don't have time right now. I don't have time to deal with this." And so we find ourselves interrupting other people when they're talking. And the biggest thing we need to do is first of all notice when we're interrupting and then second of all ask ourselves, why am I interrupting? And be totally brutally honest with ourselves. Why am I choosing not to listen? 

20:14 

Okay, and the thing that I think is fascinating about this is generally we're choosing not to listen by tuning out or interrupting. And it's a very selfish act, if not even narcissistic in nature, right? Because we're thinking that what is going on with me is way more important than what is going on with them. And this is something that is very easy to do, and I think most of us engage in it at some level, but by learning to stay focused, by learning not to interrupt, we can really start learning to be a better listener. 

20:55 

One thing that I love is that my understanding of another person is limited by what I think I already know. Let me kind of say that again. So my understanding of another person is limited by what I think I already know, because I will stop listening, I will stop asking questions, and then I will stop understanding that person, because I think I already know the answer, when very likely, I don't. And we are shutting down, or we're stopping, the relationship before it can really go anywhere else,  before it can start progressing, because we are choosing not to listen and understand and hear that person a little bit more. 

21:38 

The beautiful thing is that when we truly listen, we will find someone that we didn't know existed. First of all, we will find someone we didn't know existed in the person that we're listening to. We will really start to understand the thoughts and the ideas and the feelings and the dreams of another person, which creates a whole depth of a person that we didn't know existed before. But the other beautiful thing is that we will also find a piece of ourselves that we didn't know existed. We can find that we're a different, better person when we truly seek to listen. It brings out the best in us when we put ourselves out there to really create a place for this other person to be heard. And when we really put forth the effort. 

22:26 

And the other thing that it does is it starts to break down my walls and barriers and my heart then becomes open to true compassion. So really learning to listen and to focus on the person that I'm having this conversation with creates a different person in them and it creates a different person in me. So true listening is true compassion and when we are truly listening we will really seek to understand the other person's thoughts, feelings, and emotions and in doing that we will feel empathy and we can express that empathy. Empathy helps us to connect with the other person's emotions. 

23:08 

I had a huge aha when I listened to Brene Brown talk about empathy. I had always learned about empathy is that I was feeling with the person because I had had the same experience and having had the same experience I could understand what they are going through. But I love that Brene Brown talks about you don't have to have had the same experience. You have to have had an experience that creates the same kind of feelings. And that's where you connect on, is the same feeling. 

23:38 

And so I have not had a sibling die. So if I have a friend who has a sibling die, it's hard for me to say, "oh, I know how you feel." I don't. I have not had a sibling die, but I have had both of my parents die. And because of that, I can connect to that feeling of loss with someone that we love so deeply. And that is where my empathy can come through. So rather than saying, I know how you feel, I can say, wow, you know, it is so hard to lose someone that you love so dearly. And that is where my empathy can come in. And so truly listening allows me to connect with those same feelings that the other person is having so that I can truly express empathy. It also helps me to attend to the other person's needs and wants, which is a very selfless thing to do, to focus on what the other person needs, on what they want, and not trying to interrupt with my own needs and wants. 

24:42 

So really listening creates a more compassionate me. It also gives the other person a lot of validation, validation that they've been heard and who of us does not want to be heard when we're speaking with someone. It's so difficult to speak with someone who you know is not listening. And eventually we stop talking. We stop sharing things that really matter. And so if we want to create those intimate emotional relationships, those strong relationships, we have to be willing to really hear the other person. And I love the idea that if we are truly listening, we are giving the other person a piece of our best selves. And when I am giving them my best self, my most compassionate self, it creates a true intimacy in the relationship. 

25:34 

So let's finish off today by talking about some things that we can do to really be a better listener, some specific skills that we can incorporate into listening better. First of all, we need to choose to be present, which means turn your phone off, stick it in your pocket, get it out of your hands, get it out of your eyesight. Anything else that may be distracting, if someone comes in, your child comes in, or your husband comes in, and you're watching television, turn it off. It's not like we can't find these shows another time. Turn it off, we need to get rid of distractions, and we really need to choose to be present. We need to make eye contact with the person that we're connecting with. The more serious the conversation, generally, the more we need to turn and look at them and make eye contact. There may be some situations where that's uncomfortable for the other person, and it's easier for them to talk when we're not making eye contact, but generally that's a good rule of thumb, is that we want to make eye contact. 

26:40 

The third is that we don't want to let our mind wander, or we don't want to tune out, right? And we don't want to interrupt. So those two things we talked about before, we need to stay focused and really stay present with what's going on, and we  need to be very careful not to interrupt them. The next thing that we can do is we can validate them and do that by saying little phrases like, "uh-huh," "wow," "that sounds like it was really tough," "oh, I see where you're going with that," right? So we're saying little phrases that let them know I'm paying attention, I'm listening. And if I am listening well, those little phrases will come pretty easily, because it really is part of that back and forth that happens with true communication. 

27:30 

Another way we can validate is because it helps us to clarify what we think that we're hearing. So that's a good opportunity for us to ask questions, having to do with what they're talking about to make sure that we understand. We can say, "wow, it sounds like that was really difficult. Are you saying..." and then reply back to them, what we think we heard, right? So we're going to what was my interpretation of what I heard? We're trying to understand what their intention is in what they said. So that's where those clarifying questions come in. 

28:07 

The fifth thing we can do is to be very careful not to share our ideas, our similar experiences, our advice. We don't want to one up them, right? We don't want to jump in and take over the conversation. We want to really give people an open opportunity to share what they're talking about. Now, obviously the more serious the conversation oftentimes this requires more of that and if it's just more of a you know we're chatting at lunch over you know topics that are not that serious there can definitely be more back and forth with that. But we really want to be careful not to take over what they're talking about with our own experiences or advice or own ideas. 

28:50 

The sixth thing is to be empathetic, and we just talked about that a little bit really strive to connect with their feelings and tune into their experiences and what they've had and share that empathy in a way you know it sounds like that was a really tough experience. I know it can be really hard when we lose people or pets or something like that right. Number seven we can ask additional questions, be interested, show some curiosity in what other people are sharing with you. Nothing shows that you're interested more in what another person is saying than asking more questions. That's so important. 

29:29 

And the last thing we're going to talk about here is it's okay if there's silence, and sometimes the silence is even really valuable and even welcome. So don't feel like you have to fill the void if there's some silence sometimes. We all need, when we're talking, to just sit and listen to our brains process for a little bit. So if there's some silence that is okay. Let it happen. 

29:54 

So there we go, learning to listen is such an important skill and I hope there's been something in here that you can take and Incorporate into your own life as far as learning to be a better listener so that you can strengthen those relationships and have stronger, better relationships with the people that you love. 

30:14 

So let's finish this up by saying if you would like some personal help from me with anything that's going on in your life, you can go to Tanyahale.com. You can sign up for a free 20 minute coaching session with me, and if you really like what you're hearing here, please share this podcast with other people who you feel would love it as well. And don't forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode. Wish you the best of days today and we'll talk to you next time. Bye. 

30:43 

Thank You so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.