“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
Epictetus
How many times have you found yourself in a conversation, nodding along mindlessly as you consider your response, when the other person suddenly stops, gives you a good looking over with their eyeballs, and says:
“Are you even listening to me?”
You nod enthusiastically :
“Yes, of course!”
And if you’re lucky you might recite the last couple words they said, or pick out the general theme they were trying to convey.
But it doesn’t really matter at this point because as soon as the other person questions your commitment to the conversation, it’s going to be tough-going getting it back on track.
The key is not letting the other person get to the point where they feel as though you aren’t actually listening.
Hearing versus Being Heard
Ears are a unique body part in that (unless you’re hearing-impaired) from the day you’re born to the day you die, you can’t turn them off.
Your ears are always on. Absorbing sounds that your brain has become quite adept at filtering out.
Imagine how much cognitive bandwidth it would take for you to consciously listen to every audio cue you encounter in a day.
This is where the gulf between hearing and listening is formed.
Hearing is a passive ability that occurs with or without you.
Listening is an active ability that only occurs when you intend.
When framed in this way it becomes immediately clear that it’s not simply enough to hear the person sitting across from you.
You must listen to them.
Unfortunately, despite having two ears and a lifetime worth of practice absorbing sound, we as individuals are terrible listeners.
Listening ain’t easy
Listening requires conscious, focused attention. And, if we’re being honest, it’s draining.
It’s a shame that our education system never took the time to teach us how to listen better.
But just because our education system failed us doesn’t mean we’re destined to be bad listeners.
Listening is a skill, like any other, in that it can be cultivated and grown with deliberate practice.
Here are some general guidelines that’ll help you next time you go to the conversational-gym to take your listening skills for a workout.
Listening Ground Rules So You Can Start Seeing Some Sick Gains, Bro
1) Be Attentive
In a digital age where countless stimuli are competing for our fragmented attention, being attentive is no small accomplishment.
And yet it’s an absolute must if you want to be an expert listener.
There are a couple ways to maximize your attentiveness.
First, put the phone away.
Doesn’t matter what you’re doing, when you’re conversing with another person signal to them that they are your primary focus at that moment. Put your phone away.
Second, be interested in the other person.
It’s much easier to be attentive when we care or are intrigued. Take a genuine interest in what the other person is saying.
I admit some conversations are soul-sucking pits into which your time is being wasted. If this is the case for you, find a polite way to excuse yourself from the conversation. There’s nothing worse than staying and going through the motions.
In some situations that won’t be possible (ie: your boss has cornered you with stories of his poodle’s doodles), in this case, your first instinct might be to pull away, but the correct play is to actually double down and dig deeper into the conversation to see if you can extract the interesting bits.
2) Be A Sounding Board
Sometimes when we vent, we’re not really looking for answers. We’re just looking for somebody to listen and empathize with what we’re experiencing.
To this end, when you’re listening it’s important to push back your judgmental/critical side. Allow an open, positive atmosphere for ideas to bounce back and forth.
You do this by not interrupting the other person, and not allowing your subtle body language to convey annoyance, disapproval, or disagreement.
This is tricky because often your body acts without conscious approval. You start shaking your head yes or no instinctively.
But if you want to be a good listener, this must become a conscious mannerism, and you must not allow your body to signal to your partner any sort of critical judgment of what they are saying.
That’s for when it’s your turn to speak.
Right now it’s theirs, and they won’t really feel like you listened if you start shaking your head no, or cross your arms defensively in the middle of their sentence.
Here are the right ways to indicate you’re listening:
- -Brief, noncommittal acknowledging responses, eg., “Uh-huh.,” “I see.”
- Nonverbal acknowledgments in the form of head nodding, facial expressions matching the speaker, and soft eye contact.
3) Act Like A Mirror
If you can accurately reflect back to the person what they’re saying or feeling, then there’s a high likelihood they’ll feel you understand.
You can do this in a number of ways, but the most common (and easiest) is simply mirroring back the most important keyword or thought expressed in the other person’s preceding sentences.
Sometimes it’s enough to simply repeat what they said, word-for-word (which feels weird the first couple dozen times you do it, but I promise it gets easier with time), or by summarizing the underlying feeling or frustration they are trying to express.
Few things make a person feel more understood than when you intuit the emotions behind the words and how it makes them feel.
It’s all about subtext.
4) Avoid Too Many Questions
This isn’t a barbecue, don’t grill the other person with questions.
It’s well-intentioned (and completely misguided) to think that asking the a lot of questions will make them feel heard.
It won’t.
It’ll make them feel a conversational disparity in how much information is being given versus how much information is being received.
Good listening is not just about letting the other person do all the talking.
They’ll do the majority of speaking, yes, but you need to facilitate the conversation with thoughtful questions, insightful statements, and open-ended invitations to continue, eg: “I’d like to hear more about that.”
5) Stock Phrases Are Worthless
They’re easy. They’re filler. And we use them far, far too often.
Stock phrases such as, “It’s not that bad,” or “I know exactly how you feel,” never work as you intend them to.
These rote recitations utterly fail to convey to the other person that you actually understand and care about what they’re saying.
As a general rule, never minimize the pain the other person is feeling by using a stock phrase and never make the situation about you.
Sure, you can share an example about how you experienced a similar situation, but it needs to be coached in terms of, “Hey, it’s not exactly the same as what you’re going through here, but when I insert situation that closely mirrors their own, and here’s what I found helpful getting through it.”
In this example, you’ve acknowledged that you understand what they’re experiencing is unique to them, but you are willing to share a piece of your personal history in the hopes that it might help.
This is an incredibly powerful listening technique, but it only works if you’ve followed steps 1–4 to establish a good listener baseline.
Only once you’ve executed these steps are you in a position to share advice or opinions.
Listen Up
We’ve already established that listening ain’t easy, but we can get better at it. Through intentional practice, you can develop the skills of an expert listener.
Lucky for you, every day is filled with countless opportunities to hone your skills. So get out there and do a little less talking, and a little more listening.
Then stop back in and let me know exactly what you heard out there.
