June 20, 2020 • 28 mins
This week we dive into listening skills because most people have crappy listening skills, and YOU can make a huge impact by being an expert listener. Good listening skills makes socializing so much easier because it gives you everything you need to guide a conversation and to make the other person at ease when opening up to you. We talk about active listening skills and being present, and also some great tips to help you along the way.
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:21):
And welcome back to episode number four of the
social skills lab.
I'm your host, Nathan Ament.
This is where we talk aboutimproving your social skills. So
you could be a more socialperson.
(00:43):
So you can expand and grow yoursocial circle and develop a fun
social life.
Last week,we talked about where to meet
new people and what, what totalk about.
I shared how I,when I was starting out, I was
(01:06):
really into the music scene.
Andthat's how I became more social.
So I guess it also gave someideas of other ways to go out
and be more social, some placesto go, things to check out.
Well, since I was into the musicscene, that might not
(01:28):
necessarily be your bag, but I'dsay at least
try it out. Or if you don't wantto do that, just figure out some
other way. Basically, the reasonwhy the social scene the music
scene was so good was because Ikept running into the same
people over and over again,because it was a pretty small
scene.
And that just lends itself tobeing, you know, making better
(01:53):
connections with people. So anyway you can engineer that
concept of going to a placewhere you where you would might,
or you might run into the samepeople do that someday. So like
take up a class or joining ussome type of club, I don't know,
just any way you can figure outto run into the same people over
(02:13):
and over and over and overagain,
that would be probably prettyhelpful, because it just makes
it easier to make a strongerconnection with someone than
just randomly run into a personone off, which does work, you
can do it. But I don't know,maybe you even take a part time
job somewhere.
(02:33):
A lot of people make friends atwork. Another good idea for a
job is to get a job where youhave to socialize. One of the
two, I had a job. Back when Iwas like 2122, I worked at a
call center. And I think that'sprobably where I first started
getting forced to socialize alot more, I had to take all
(02:56):
these just take phone calls allday, incoming phone calls,
people trying to redeem theirpoints of their credit cards and
stuff like that for like giftcards and stuff like that. And I
was just forced to be on thephone and chat with people all
day long.
I heard like even getting a joblike as a bartender or a greeter
somewhere that can help a lot.
And anything you could do toforce yourself if you're not, if
(03:19):
you know you're not going to doit, but you want to do it, maybe
just find a way to forceyourself into some type of
position where you're going tohave to socialize more.
That's not a bad idea. Okay, sowe also talked about what to
talk about. So on that one, Ijust basically said, to expand
your interests, as much aspossible. Learn about all kinds
(03:42):
of different things, try newthings, take up a hobby, take up
several hobbies, because you'llmake connections between things,
subconsciously, and it'll helpyou talk about interesting
things to people. I know,myself, I took up, I got
interested in art.
So I took up oil painting. Itook it at the community
(04:06):
college, but first I had to takeup drawing before I did that. So
I don't know, I just got intoart for the last 10 years. And
then after a while of going to Ireally like going to museums.
And after a while it's like, youknow, like what they say is
like, Oh, I could do that soundslike yeah, I could do that.
Well, I could do something likethat at least I take that up and
(04:27):
then I've been doing some oilpainting in the garage. Some
stuffs turning out pretty cool.
But last weekend, I was at afriend's house. And I noticed
that there's a couple of us overthere. And I was talking to this
girl. She had some paintings upon the wall. And I asked her I
(04:49):
was like, oh, did you do those?
She's like, yeah, yeah, I waslike, Oh, those look like
acrylic.
And she's like, yeah, and sheknows that I've been painting as
well, but I didn't reallyrealize that she had been
paintingSo we started just talking about
painting. And I do mostly oilpainting, I have done some
acrylics, but I mostly do oil.
So I was asking her a lot ofquestions about how she does the
(05:11):
acrylics. And the onlydifference is those are water
based versus oil based painting.
So we don't know, we ended uptalking about our for like, 20
or 30 minutes. So it's just apretty good example, I think of,
you know, when you expand yourinterests, you can relate to
people on those interests andstuff like that a lot. It just
happens. It happens all thetime.
(05:35):
So this week, we're going to betalking about listening skills,
and being present.
If you, I think if you asked 100people, if they are good
listeners 100, people would tellyou, Yes, they are. And
I think that's part of theproblem. Because I would say in
(05:57):
my personal experience, I veryrarely meet someone who's a good
listener, it's maybe one out of10 people, if that I find that
are actually like really goodlisteners.
It's such an important skill,though, too. Because if you
think about it, when you're whentwo people are talking, or if
you know, you're in a group oflike three people that are
(06:20):
having a conversation,you're gonna have, you're going
to have one person talking,like, theoretically, you're
gonna have one person talking,one person listening, or you're
gonna have one person talking,and two people listening. So
it's one or the other. So ifyou're going to be talking, then
you know,do your best to be interesting.
(06:42):
If you're going to be listening,do your best to be a good
listener, it just makes aconversation flow so much better
when both people are playingtheir parts. The other thing
about really good listeningskills, and listening is a
skill. So just think of it thatway. It's a skill that needs to
be honed, and improved as muchas possible, if you want to be
(07:03):
if you want to improve yoursocial skills, you're gonna have
to improve your listeningskills. The nice thing about
improving your listening skillsis that it makes socializing
something like 100% easier. Andthis is why
if I start talking to someone,and I tap into something that
(07:25):
they like talking about, I'malmost pretty much done for like
10 minutes. You can have someoneyou can ask the right question
to someone. And if you startjust listening Well, if they
they know you're likeinterested, like good listening
skills shows that you'reinterested in what they're
saying. So they feel like you'reinterested. Then people just
(07:46):
love talking sometimes, likethey'll go off and
they can talk for like 10minutes straight. Let me give
you an example. This I was thisweek, I was working in Oakland.
I'm an electronics technician.
So I was working on this alarmpanel at a security security
booth at this parking lot. Andthere was this. There's this guy
(08:09):
there. And he was chilling. Hewas on his phone and stuff like
that talking to people. And Iwas working on this alarm panel.
I was working on it for a couplehours. But so I was like
rewiring all this stuff. And Ioverheard him talking on the
phone how he was excited. He waslike super stoked about having
his new album come out.
(08:33):
So when he got off the phone, Iwas like, Oh, you got I was
like, I heard you say you havean album coming out. And he's
like, Yeah, I was like, so whatdo you do? He's like, Oh, I'm a
rapper. And I myself, I'm intomaking music. I've been doing it
for a while. I make mostly likeelectronic music like that. The
(08:55):
intro music and the outro musicon this podcast is something
that I made myself. And so Iknew I knew pretty much that I'd
be able to chat up, chat him upabout it. Because you know, I
like rap music too. So I knewthat. I had a pretty good sense
that Oh, yeah, we'll be talkingabout this for a minute. So
yeah, I was like, Oh, that'scool. I was like, so what kind
(09:16):
of music you make. He's like,I'm a rapper. I don't know. He
just started talking about it.
And I pretty I pretty muchdidn't have to say anything for
about 10 minutes. I just wasactively listening. And man this
guy was he told me everythingabout his rap career and his
inspirations and his his rapcrew. In the end, I started
asking him specifics about therecording, like, Oh, yeah, where
(09:37):
do you record it at? Do you makeyour own? Do you make your own
music? Or do you have a musicproducer you work with?
So I don't know. It's just oneof those things, too. It's like,
I've, I have more expandedinterests. I could talk about
all kinds of things with people.
But yeah, so let me tell youwhen you're one of the things I
(09:58):
do when I'm listeningThey talk about active
listening, there's a lot of goodtips for active listening. So
I'll do is,you know, I'll just like make
sure I have really good eyecontact, I'll just be kind of
kick back and relax bodylanguage, but I'll be very
attentive and focused on whatthe person is talking about,
(10:19):
I'll try to be completelypresent with them.
I'll kind of just like nod myhead here and there to make sure
that they kind of like nodding,like a slow nod of your head is
a really good tip that I usequite a bit. It kind of does
signals. It does signalagreement, but it also kind of
(10:42):
just signals. Yes, I'm here. I'mstill listening as well. And
then I'll, you know, I'll justmake short comments as as they
go along. I'm like, like, Yeah,okay. Okay, cool. Yeah.
Interesting, huh? You know, I'lljust make little, because I've,
what I've done in the past isI've done none of those things
where I don't nod. And I don'tsay anything. And the person
(11:06):
will frequently be like, Do youunderstand what I'm saying? So
you do have to kind of like,give them feedback as they're
talking.
Yeah, you just do a lot of that.
And then the nice thing aboutlistening a lot,
and not trying to like, come upwith something clever to say, or
as they're talking is, they'llgive you all kinds of
(11:28):
information when they'retalking. And they'll give you
different avenues and differentroads that your conversation can
go on. But you really have tostart sensing, like the flow of
the conversation, like, should Ijump in with this? Or should I
say that you kind of just I liketo, I really like to let it flow
(11:49):
naturally.
But they will tell you all kindsof stuff that
is really good stuff to keeptalking about. I heard I
remember hearing the concept ofa campfire. So think of a
conversation as a campfire whereit's like, sometimes you'll put
in sticks to keep it going. Andsometimes you'll put in logs. So
(12:12):
you don't always have to havelike a big juicy, like, Great
point. To add to theconversation. Sometimes you can
just throw little twigs andsticks in there to keep it
going. So yeah, I mean, I knewwhen I asked him about
his his record release party andhis album coming out, that's
basically a log. But you canalways like just throw in little
(12:35):
sticks and like,stick to keep it going.
So yeah, I mean, when so like, alot of times, this happens a lot
of times when I'll talk tosomeone, and it doesn't happen
every time. But it does happenfrequently enough that it's that
it's really interesting that youcan just ask a couple questions.
And if you just tap intosomething that they're really
interested or like to talkabout, and then and then you
(12:58):
immediately go into, yeah, tellme about it. I'm really
interested. And I'm going tolisten and let you talk,
you can easily find yourself in10 minute listening session.
Which is, you know, most of timeis cool, but sometimes,
I don't know, I've noticed withsome friends that I've had in
the past where they like to talkso much that I'm constantly
(13:21):
having to interject. So I cansay something or else it's
basically going to be threehours of them talking. And like,
I'm not able to say anything.
And then or no, that's just notfun. That's not really a
conversation. It's more of amonologue. So I don't know, some
people thathave the gift of gab,
(13:42):
they're not they're notnecessarily, they don't
necessarily have really goodsocial skills, because all they
do is talk and they don't knowhow to listen.
So just because you talk a lotdoesn't necessarily mean
your social skills are good, youhave to learn how to be a good
listener, you know, when it'slike really too close friends,
(14:04):
it should be about 5050 youknow, percent of one person
talking one person listeningdoesn't have to be exactly that.
But you get the idea. Itshouldn't be like 98%, one
person talking 2% the otherperson talking. But a lot of
times when I meet someone new,if they like to talk, I'll let
them talk like 80% of the time.
I'm fine with that.
(14:27):
I don't, I can. I like to learnsomething new. And usually I
could learn something cool orinteresting when I just talk to
someone new about stuff. I'llgive you another tip about
active listening. I wasI was working at these clinics.
And I was working on thesecopiers and printers and stuff
like that. And so sometimes I'dget a call and I'd have to go
(14:48):
and deal with a customer and youknow, a lot of times I would
know that the customers likekind of difficult or if the same
fact fax machine had broken likeeight times in the last three
months, they're probably gettingpretty pissed off. So and if
it's a combination of the two, Iwas in for a real ride. So I
(15:11):
always had like a clipboard withlike paper, blank paper on it.
So I would take notes on there,whatever. So for example, I
would go to, let's just say, Iremember this one call where I
went to, and the nurse lady shewas, she was really mad. She was
like telling me, this thing getskeeps breaking all the time. And
(15:32):
I'm just so sick of this.
So I came up with a pretty goodtechnique where I would just,
you know, stand there with my,and make sure my arms weren't
crossed, keep my arms open mybody language open, I focused my
attention on them. I would justsay, okay, so can you tell me
what's been going on recentlywith it, and they would start
talking, and you know, they'repretty bad. She'd be pretty mad
(15:56):
or whatever. And I made it apoint to just listen, listen,
and then listen, and thenlisten, and then listen, because
I noticed that so manytechnicians, they would just cut
them off, like mid sentence, andthey would just make them more
mad. And it would happen somuch. I'm like, these people
just not understanding that whenyou cut somebody off, when
(16:16):
they're pissed off, that it justmakes them more pissed off, and
it makes your job harder. So whywould you do it, it just makes
your job more difficult. So Iwould just let them talk and
talk.
You know, I'd say most of thetime, and they would talk for
about two or three minutesstraight. And that's really not
that long. Every once while it'dbe like, five minutes, which can
(16:36):
feel like a very long time. Andsometimes they would just start
repeating themselves. And ifthey did start repeating
themselves, I would interjectand then try to like, gently cut
off and then go into what I wasgonna say. But if they weren't,
you know, I'd usually just letthem talk it out. Because they,
by the end, they would see thatI'm paying attention. And if
they're given me a lot ofinformation, I would just I
(16:59):
would also start writing down onmy clipboard, start taking
notes. And just by doing that,showing them actively listening,
nodding and saying, Okay, andthen I would also remember this
technique, this is very useful.
It's called reflectivelistening.
So sometimes you can doreflective listening by
(17:22):
restating a couple points are acouple facts that they had
stated to you. Like I would say,like, okay, so it's been making
noise. And it also, it justwon't print this thing, or
whatever. So that's like, that'slike reflecting factual
information. But you can alsouse reflective listening for
(17:45):
reflecting emotion. So I wouldfrequently say, something to the
effect of, Oh, yeah, that soundslike that'd be really
frustrating. And they're like,Yeah, it is.
And that little thing, man, Itell you what that thing works.
So amazingly well, I do it allthe time. And I and I don't just
do it as a technique or atactic, which I did first,
(18:09):
because I didn't reallyunderstand it. But now I do it.
Like when I'm talking to friendsand stuff like that. I'll
reflect back emotions, it reallyshows, I don't know, it just
helps you connect in some weirdway. And it's really super
useful. So I recommend trying itout. Just doing it more, because
(18:29):
it's such a great way. And I'lltell you what, most of the time
when a customer's pissed off.
Within 10 minutes, they're like,okay, thank you so much. Thank
you, you know, for like,thanking me, and I didn't even
do anything except listen.
So that's, that's why listeningskills are super important. You
really want to develop youractive listening skills, like
(18:50):
you know, slowly nodding,commenting back. And then
reflective listening a lot openbody language, really good eye
contact, make sure you don'thave like resting bitchface when
you're doing your, when you're,you know, being present, stuff
like that.
So speaking of being present,we're gonna talk about being
present for a minute. It's very,you know, closely related to
(19:13):
listening, but I think it's alittle different. Or it overlaps
in some way. I know that when I,one of the first things I was
getting into at the same time oflearning social skills, I
started learning more aboutEastern philosophy. And then,
and specifically, I was learningabout something called the doubt
(19:33):
aging. I really, reallyrecommend checking out this
guy's audio book. It's called, Ithink it's just called the doubt
aging. And he also has a secondaudio book about Eastern
philosophy called the secondbook of the Dow. I'll tell you
what, the audio books, they'repretty short. They're like two
hours long, or like an hourlong, but I probably listened to
(19:55):
them about 30 times.
That'sLike the most I've ever listened
to something because I don'tknow, it just it goes back like
2000 years, 2500 years orsomething. But it's the
philosophy behind it. It'sreally simple. I mean, one of
the things was like,that came from it was a journey
of 1000 miles begins with asingle step or something like
(20:17):
that, you know, some pretty,pretty wild stuff. But
I found that a lot of theEastern Zen stuff was really
helpful with social skills,the main one being of just being
present with people just beingpresent in your own life and
stuff like that. So I would Itried meditation. There was
(20:37):
this. There was like a Buddhistcenter in West Sacramento. I
always drove by it. I'm like,What is that place? Because it
was just like some big compound.
And I googled it. And it waslike, I'm like, Oh, it's a
Buddhist, carnal colony.
AndI noticed on our web page, it
(20:57):
said, free meditation classes.
And I was like, Oh, yeah, thatmight be cool. I might like to
try meditation. So I signed upfor it. And when I got there, it
was like, it was so legit. Itwas like, you know, you go in
the compound. And ever all thesemonks are wearing like the old
school monk outfits and stufflike that. And you go into this,
(21:20):
like, this, like meditationhall, it was like nice and like
dim. And there was like a GiantBuddha on one side, and there
was like, like, incense burningand stuff like that. And there's
like, two monks are like, oh,welcome. And there's, like,
three of us there. It's like, noone there. And it was perfect,
though, because we just like,chilled and meditated for like,
(21:40):
you know, 30 minutes, 40minutes. And then we would talk
about meditation. And I did thatfor,
I don't know, I think it was,like 10 weeks or 10 weeks or
something. But it was soamazing. And it's really simple.
I mean, meditation. To me,there's a bunch of different
ways you can do it. But the mostbasic is just trying to sit
quietly. And you could do across legged or in a chair, or
(22:03):
whatever. And just like tryingnot to think, because when you
try to, when you sit and closeyour eyes, you're going to start
thinking about stuff. So the keyis just to not think and try to
do it for like, you know, 10minutes, five minutes, 20
minutes, some people do it forhours, but
I don't know, I think it justreally helps with socializing,
(22:26):
it helps with listening, becauseyou can learn to be more
present, I would recommend justtrying it out.
It's really good practice.
I think acouple things that I wanted to
mention a couple things.
talked about, like, earlierabout getting a job that would
(22:46):
help you socialize was, uh, twoyears ago, it's been two years
ago. Now, I was visiting afriend out in Pennsylvania. And
I was out there all summer. Andhe told me, he's like, Hey, you
know, if you want to make somemoney, you could use one of my
cars for Uber. Because I was Ibasically wasn't doing anything.
So I was like, Yeah, that soundsawesome. And I didn't realize
it. But I kind of got the jobfor Uber to just make some
(23:11):
money. But I realized right awayand like, office is such a great
way to work on social skills,because you basically meet new
people like every, every, like30 minutes to an hour, I would
recommend trying it out, likesign up for Lyft or Uber, just
to work on your social skills.
The way I did it is I found thatmaybe about
(23:34):
half the people who got in theUber weren't particularly
interested in talking. I knowthat sometimes when I get an
Uber, I don't really feel liketalking. But sometimes I do. And
I'm totally willing to like chatsomeone up. So a lot of times,
I'll just be like, Hey, how's itgoing? And they'd get in. I'm
like, so how's your day gone?
And that's really all I did. AndI would build a tool right away
if they want to talk or if theydon't want to talk. And
(23:56):
sometimes when they do want totalk. It's pretty like mundane,
basic stuff. But other times,I'd say like,
you know, at least once or twicea night, I would get into some
like seriously deepconversations with people. And,
man, I just thought it was itwas a really fun experience, to
be honest, like, be picking up.
I would try not to pick uppeople too late at night,
(24:17):
because I don't really want topick up drunk people. I'd
usually quit around and usuallyquit around 11 o'clock or 10
o'clock. Or one time I picked upthis guy. He's like, he's like,
he's like, Can I smoke in yourcar? And I was like, No, you
can't. It's it's actually not mycar. My friend's car. He's like,
dude, I'll give you 20 bucks.
(24:37):
I was like,okay, but you can only smoke
half of it.
And he's, I don't know, we juststarted talking. And he's like,
Yeah, I just met this girl Iused to go to high school with I
was talking her on Facebook, andI'm married right now, but I
don't know. I just wanted tomeet up with her. He's like, I'm
gonna meet up with her at ahotel. So basically, he's
(24:58):
telling me how he's gonna gocheat on us.
Wife.
Like, I don't know, it's justlike an interesting
conversation. I just, I justtalked to so many pretty, really
cool people. And I thought itwas a really great experience.
And I recommend giving it ashot, trying it out if you've,
if you don't know how to work onyour social skills any other
(25:19):
way, that's a really great way.
So let's see in next week, we'regoing to be talking about the
logistics of saying hello topeople, like the actual
specifics like mechanical,little details about it. And
we're also going to talk about,you know, how to contact
information from us someone elsehow to, like keep in touch, how
(25:40):
to maintain contact, or, youknow, just logistics around that
to some specific, very specificstuff. They think that's all for
this week. I hope you guys havea great week. Go out there and
make sure you talk to at leastone or two new people a day.
Keep pushing the conversations alittle further than yours than
you are used to. And I'll seeyou guys next week.
(26:07):
Take care
And welcome back to episode number four of the
social skills lab.
I'm your host, Nathan Ament.
This is where we talk aboutimproving your social skills. So
you could be a more socialperson.
(00:43):
So you can expand and grow yoursocial circle and develop a fun
social life.
Last week,we talked about where to meet
new people and what, what totalk about.
I shared how I,when I was starting out, I was
(01:06):
really into the music scene.
Andthat's how I became more social.
So I guess it also gave someideas of other ways to go out
and be more social, some placesto go, things to check out.
Well, since I was into the musicscene, that might not
(01:28):
necessarily be your bag, but I'dsay at least
try it out. Or if you don't wantto do that, just figure out some
other way. Basically, the reasonwhy the social scene the music
scene was so good was because Ikept running into the same
people over and over again,because it was a pretty small
scene.
And that just lends itself tobeing, you know, making better
(01:53):
connections with people. So anyway you can engineer that
concept of going to a placewhere you where you would might,
or you might run into the samepeople do that someday. So like
take up a class or joining ussome type of club, I don't know,
just any way you can figure outto run into the same people over
(02:13):
and over and over and overagain,
that would be probably prettyhelpful, because it just makes
it easier to make a strongerconnection with someone than
just randomly run into a personone off, which does work, you
can do it. But I don't know,maybe you even take a part time
job somewhere.
(02:33):
A lot of people make friends atwork. Another good idea for a
job is to get a job where youhave to socialize. One of the
two, I had a job. Back when Iwas like 2122, I worked at a
call center. And I think that'sprobably where I first started
getting forced to socialize alot more, I had to take all
(02:56):
these just take phone calls allday, incoming phone calls,
people trying to redeem theirpoints of their credit cards and
stuff like that for like giftcards and stuff like that. And I
was just forced to be on thephone and chat with people all
day long.
I heard like even getting a joblike as a bartender or a greeter
somewhere that can help a lot.
And anything you could do toforce yourself if you're not, if
(03:19):
you know you're not going to doit, but you want to do it, maybe
just find a way to forceyourself into some type of
position where you're going tohave to socialize more.
That's not a bad idea. Okay, sowe also talked about what to
talk about. So on that one, Ijust basically said, to expand
your interests, as much aspossible. Learn about all kinds
(03:42):
of different things, try newthings, take up a hobby, take up
several hobbies, because you'llmake connections between things,
subconsciously, and it'll helpyou talk about interesting
things to people. I know,myself, I took up, I got
interested in art.
So I took up oil painting. Itook it at the community
(04:06):
college, but first I had to takeup drawing before I did that. So
I don't know, I just got intoart for the last 10 years. And
then after a while of going to Ireally like going to museums.
And after a while it's like, youknow, like what they say is
like, Oh, I could do that soundslike yeah, I could do that.
Well, I could do something likethat at least I take that up and
(04:27):
then I've been doing some oilpainting in the garage. Some
stuffs turning out pretty cool.
But last weekend, I was at afriend's house. And I noticed
that there's a couple of us overthere. And I was talking to this
girl. She had some paintings upon the wall. And I asked her I
(04:49):
was like, oh, did you do those?
She's like, yeah, yeah, I waslike, Oh, those look like
acrylic.
And she's like, yeah, and sheknows that I've been painting as
well, but I didn't reallyrealize that she had been
paintingSo we started just talking about
painting. And I do mostly oilpainting, I have done some
acrylics, but I mostly do oil.
So I was asking her a lot ofquestions about how she does the
(05:11):
acrylics. And the onlydifference is those are water
based versus oil based painting.
So we don't know, we ended uptalking about our for like, 20
or 30 minutes. So it's just apretty good example, I think of,
you know, when you expand yourinterests, you can relate to
people on those interests andstuff like that a lot. It just
happens. It happens all thetime.
(05:35):
So this week, we're going to betalking about listening skills,
and being present.
If you, I think if you asked 100people, if they are good
listeners 100, people would tellyou, Yes, they are. And
I think that's part of theproblem. Because I would say in
(05:57):
my personal experience, I veryrarely meet someone who's a good
listener, it's maybe one out of10 people, if that I find that
are actually like really goodlisteners.
It's such an important skill,though, too. Because if you
think about it, when you're whentwo people are talking, or if
you know, you're in a group oflike three people that are
(06:20):
having a conversation,you're gonna have, you're going
to have one person talking,like, theoretically, you're
gonna have one person talking,one person listening, or you're
gonna have one person talking,and two people listening. So
it's one or the other. So ifyou're going to be talking, then
you know,do your best to be interesting.
(06:42):
If you're going to be listening,do your best to be a good
listener, it just makes aconversation flow so much better
when both people are playingtheir parts. The other thing
about really good listeningskills, and listening is a
skill. So just think of it thatway. It's a skill that needs to
be honed, and improved as muchas possible, if you want to be
(07:03):
if you want to improve yoursocial skills, you're gonna have
to improve your listeningskills. The nice thing about
improving your listening skillsis that it makes socializing
something like 100% easier. Andthis is why
if I start talking to someone,and I tap into something that
(07:25):
they like talking about, I'malmost pretty much done for like
10 minutes. You can have someoneyou can ask the right question
to someone. And if you startjust listening Well, if they
they know you're likeinterested, like good listening
skills shows that you'reinterested in what they're
saying. So they feel like you'reinterested. Then people just
(07:46):
love talking sometimes, likethey'll go off and
they can talk for like 10minutes straight. Let me give
you an example. This I was thisweek, I was working in Oakland.
I'm an electronics technician.
So I was working on this alarmpanel at a security security
booth at this parking lot. Andthere was this. There's this guy
(08:09):
there. And he was chilling. Hewas on his phone and stuff like
that talking to people. And Iwas working on this alarm panel.
I was working on it for a couplehours. But so I was like
rewiring all this stuff. And Ioverheard him talking on the
phone how he was excited. He waslike super stoked about having
his new album come out.
(08:33):
So when he got off the phone, Iwas like, Oh, you got I was
like, I heard you say you havean album coming out. And he's
like, Yeah, I was like, so whatdo you do? He's like, Oh, I'm a
rapper. And I myself, I'm intomaking music. I've been doing it
for a while. I make mostly likeelectronic music like that. The
(08:55):
intro music and the outro musicon this podcast is something
that I made myself. And so Iknew I knew pretty much that I'd
be able to chat up, chat him upabout it. Because you know, I
like rap music too. So I knewthat. I had a pretty good sense
that Oh, yeah, we'll be talkingabout this for a minute. So
yeah, I was like, Oh, that'scool. I was like, so what kind
(09:16):
of music you make. He's like,I'm a rapper. I don't know. He
just started talking about it.
And I pretty I pretty muchdidn't have to say anything for
about 10 minutes. I just wasactively listening. And man this
guy was he told me everythingabout his rap career and his
inspirations and his his rapcrew. In the end, I started
asking him specifics about therecording, like, Oh, yeah, where
(09:37):
do you record it at? Do you makeyour own? Do you make your own
music? Or do you have a musicproducer you work with?
So I don't know. It's just oneof those things, too. It's like,
I've, I have more expandedinterests. I could talk about
all kinds of things with people.
But yeah, so let me tell youwhen you're one of the things I
(09:58):
do when I'm listeningThey talk about active
listening, there's a lot of goodtips for active listening. So
I'll do is,you know, I'll just like make
sure I have really good eyecontact, I'll just be kind of
kick back and relax bodylanguage, but I'll be very
attentive and focused on whatthe person is talking about,
(10:19):
I'll try to be completelypresent with them.
I'll kind of just like nod myhead here and there to make sure
that they kind of like nodding,like a slow nod of your head is
a really good tip that I usequite a bit. It kind of does
signals. It does signalagreement, but it also kind of
(10:42):
just signals. Yes, I'm here. I'mstill listening as well. And
then I'll, you know, I'll justmake short comments as as they
go along. I'm like, like, Yeah,okay. Okay, cool. Yeah.
Interesting, huh? You know, I'lljust make little, because I've,
what I've done in the past isI've done none of those things
where I don't nod. And I don'tsay anything. And the person
(11:06):
will frequently be like, Do youunderstand what I'm saying? So
you do have to kind of like,give them feedback as they're
talking.
Yeah, you just do a lot of that.
And then the nice thing aboutlistening a lot,
and not trying to like, come upwith something clever to say, or
as they're talking is, they'llgive you all kinds of
(11:28):
information when they'retalking. And they'll give you
different avenues and differentroads that your conversation can
go on. But you really have tostart sensing, like the flow of
the conversation, like, should Ijump in with this? Or should I
say that you kind of just I liketo, I really like to let it flow
(11:49):
naturally.
But they will tell you all kindsof stuff that
is really good stuff to keeptalking about. I heard I
remember hearing the concept ofa campfire. So think of a
conversation as a campfire whereit's like, sometimes you'll put
in sticks to keep it going. Andsometimes you'll put in logs. So
(12:12):
you don't always have to havelike a big juicy, like, Great
point. To add to theconversation. Sometimes you can
just throw little twigs andsticks in there to keep it
going. So yeah, I mean, I knewwhen I asked him about
his his record release party andhis album coming out, that's
basically a log. But you canalways like just throw in little
(12:35):
sticks and like,stick to keep it going.
So yeah, I mean, when so like, alot of times, this happens a lot
of times when I'll talk tosomeone, and it doesn't happen
every time. But it does happenfrequently enough that it's that
it's really interesting that youcan just ask a couple questions.
And if you just tap intosomething that they're really
interested or like to talkabout, and then and then you
(12:58):
immediately go into, yeah, tellme about it. I'm really
interested. And I'm going tolisten and let you talk,
you can easily find yourself in10 minute listening session.
Which is, you know, most of timeis cool, but sometimes,
I don't know, I've noticed withsome friends that I've had in
the past where they like to talkso much that I'm constantly
(13:21):
having to interject. So I cansay something or else it's
basically going to be threehours of them talking. And like,
I'm not able to say anything.
And then or no, that's just notfun. That's not really a
conversation. It's more of amonologue. So I don't know, some
people thathave the gift of gab,
(13:42):
they're not they're notnecessarily, they don't
necessarily have really goodsocial skills, because all they
do is talk and they don't knowhow to listen.
So just because you talk a lotdoesn't necessarily mean
your social skills are good, youhave to learn how to be a good
listener, you know, when it'slike really too close friends,
(14:04):
it should be about 5050 youknow, percent of one person
talking one person listeningdoesn't have to be exactly that.
But you get the idea. Itshouldn't be like 98%, one
person talking 2% the otherperson talking. But a lot of
times when I meet someone new,if they like to talk, I'll let
them talk like 80% of the time.
I'm fine with that.
(14:27):
I don't, I can. I like to learnsomething new. And usually I
could learn something cool orinteresting when I just talk to
someone new about stuff. I'llgive you another tip about
active listening. I wasI was working at these clinics.
And I was working on thesecopiers and printers and stuff
like that. And so sometimes I'dget a call and I'd have to go
(14:48):
and deal with a customer and youknow, a lot of times I would
know that the customers likekind of difficult or if the same
fact fax machine had broken likeeight times in the last three
months, they're probably gettingpretty pissed off. So and if
it's a combination of the two, Iwas in for a real ride. So I
(15:11):
always had like a clipboard withlike paper, blank paper on it.
So I would take notes on there,whatever. So for example, I
would go to, let's just say, Iremember this one call where I
went to, and the nurse lady shewas, she was really mad. She was
like telling me, this thing getskeeps breaking all the time. And
(15:32):
I'm just so sick of this.
So I came up with a pretty goodtechnique where I would just,
you know, stand there with my,and make sure my arms weren't
crossed, keep my arms open mybody language open, I focused my
attention on them. I would justsay, okay, so can you tell me
what's been going on recentlywith it, and they would start
talking, and you know, they'repretty bad. She'd be pretty mad
(15:56):
or whatever. And I made it apoint to just listen, listen,
and then listen, and thenlisten, and then listen, because
I noticed that so manytechnicians, they would just cut
them off, like mid sentence, andthey would just make them more
mad. And it would happen somuch. I'm like, these people
just not understanding that whenyou cut somebody off, when
(16:16):
they're pissed off, that it justmakes them more pissed off, and
it makes your job harder. So whywould you do it, it just makes
your job more difficult. So Iwould just let them talk and
talk.
You know, I'd say most of thetime, and they would talk for
about two or three minutesstraight. And that's really not
that long. Every once while it'dbe like, five minutes, which can
(16:36):
feel like a very long time. Andsometimes they would just start
repeating themselves. And ifthey did start repeating
themselves, I would interjectand then try to like, gently cut
off and then go into what I wasgonna say. But if they weren't,
you know, I'd usually just letthem talk it out. Because they,
by the end, they would see thatI'm paying attention. And if
they're given me a lot ofinformation, I would just I
(16:59):
would also start writing down onmy clipboard, start taking
notes. And just by doing that,showing them actively listening,
nodding and saying, Okay, andthen I would also remember this
technique, this is very useful.
It's called reflectivelistening.
So sometimes you can doreflective listening by
(17:22):
restating a couple points are acouple facts that they had
stated to you. Like I would say,like, okay, so it's been making
noise. And it also, it justwon't print this thing, or
whatever. So that's like, that'slike reflecting factual
information. But you can alsouse reflective listening for
(17:45):
reflecting emotion. So I wouldfrequently say, something to the
effect of, Oh, yeah, that soundslike that'd be really
frustrating. And they're like,Yeah, it is.
And that little thing, man, Itell you what that thing works.
So amazingly well, I do it allthe time. And I and I don't just
do it as a technique or atactic, which I did first,
(18:09):
because I didn't reallyunderstand it. But now I do it.
Like when I'm talking to friendsand stuff like that. I'll
reflect back emotions, it reallyshows, I don't know, it just
helps you connect in some weirdway. And it's really super
useful. So I recommend trying itout. Just doing it more, because
(18:29):
it's such a great way. And I'lltell you what, most of the time
when a customer's pissed off.
Within 10 minutes, they're like,okay, thank you so much. Thank
you, you know, for like,thanking me, and I didn't even
do anything except listen.
So that's, that's why listeningskills are super important. You
really want to develop youractive listening skills, like
(18:50):
you know, slowly nodding,commenting back. And then
reflective listening a lot openbody language, really good eye
contact, make sure you don'thave like resting bitchface when
you're doing your, when you're,you know, being present, stuff
like that.
So speaking of being present,we're gonna talk about being
present for a minute. It's very,you know, closely related to
(19:13):
listening, but I think it's alittle different. Or it overlaps
in some way. I know that when I,one of the first things I was
getting into at the same time oflearning social skills, I
started learning more aboutEastern philosophy. And then,
and specifically, I was learningabout something called the doubt
(19:33):
aging. I really, reallyrecommend checking out this
guy's audio book. It's called, Ithink it's just called the doubt
aging. And he also has a secondaudio book about Eastern
philosophy called the secondbook of the Dow. I'll tell you
what, the audio books, they'repretty short. They're like two
hours long, or like an hourlong, but I probably listened to
(19:55):
them about 30 times.
That'sLike the most I've ever listened
to something because I don'tknow, it just it goes back like
2000 years, 2500 years orsomething. But it's the
philosophy behind it. It'sreally simple. I mean, one of
the things was like,that came from it was a journey
of 1000 miles begins with asingle step or something like
(20:17):
that, you know, some pretty,pretty wild stuff. But
I found that a lot of theEastern Zen stuff was really
helpful with social skills,the main one being of just being
present with people just beingpresent in your own life and
stuff like that. So I would Itried meditation. There was
(20:37):
this. There was like a Buddhistcenter in West Sacramento. I
always drove by it. I'm like,What is that place? Because it
was just like some big compound.
And I googled it. And it waslike, I'm like, Oh, it's a
Buddhist, carnal colony.
AndI noticed on our web page, it
(20:57):
said, free meditation classes.
And I was like, Oh, yeah, thatmight be cool. I might like to
try meditation. So I signed upfor it. And when I got there, it
was like, it was so legit. Itwas like, you know, you go in
the compound. And ever all thesemonks are wearing like the old
school monk outfits and stufflike that. And you go into this,
(21:20):
like, this, like meditationhall, it was like nice and like
dim. And there was like a GiantBuddha on one side, and there
was like, like, incense burningand stuff like that. And there's
like, two monks are like, oh,welcome. And there's, like,
three of us there. It's like, noone there. And it was perfect,
though, because we just like,chilled and meditated for like,
(21:40):
you know, 30 minutes, 40minutes. And then we would talk
about meditation. And I did thatfor,
I don't know, I think it was,like 10 weeks or 10 weeks or
something. But it was soamazing. And it's really simple.
I mean, meditation. To me,there's a bunch of different
ways you can do it. But the mostbasic is just trying to sit
quietly. And you could do across legged or in a chair, or
(22:03):
whatever. And just like tryingnot to think, because when you
try to, when you sit and closeyour eyes, you're going to start
thinking about stuff. So the keyis just to not think and try to
do it for like, you know, 10minutes, five minutes, 20
minutes, some people do it forhours, but
I don't know, I think it justreally helps with socializing,
(22:26):
it helps with listening, becauseyou can learn to be more
present, I would recommend justtrying it out.
It's really good practice.
I think acouple things that I wanted to
mention a couple things.
talked about, like, earlierabout getting a job that would
(22:46):
help you socialize was, uh, twoyears ago, it's been two years
ago. Now, I was visiting afriend out in Pennsylvania. And
I was out there all summer. Andhe told me, he's like, Hey, you
know, if you want to make somemoney, you could use one of my
cars for Uber. Because I was Ibasically wasn't doing anything.
So I was like, Yeah, that soundsawesome. And I didn't realize
it. But I kind of got the jobfor Uber to just make some
(23:11):
money. But I realized right awayand like, office is such a great
way to work on social skills,because you basically meet new
people like every, every, like30 minutes to an hour, I would
recommend trying it out, likesign up for Lyft or Uber, just
to work on your social skills.
The way I did it is I found thatmaybe about
(23:34):
half the people who got in theUber weren't particularly
interested in talking. I knowthat sometimes when I get an
Uber, I don't really feel liketalking. But sometimes I do. And
I'm totally willing to like chatsomeone up. So a lot of times,
I'll just be like, Hey, how's itgoing? And they'd get in. I'm
like, so how's your day gone?
And that's really all I did. AndI would build a tool right away
if they want to talk or if theydon't want to talk. And
(23:56):
sometimes when they do want totalk. It's pretty like mundane,
basic stuff. But other times,I'd say like,
you know, at least once or twicea night, I would get into some
like seriously deepconversations with people. And,
man, I just thought it was itwas a really fun experience, to
be honest, like, be picking up.
I would try not to pick uppeople too late at night,
(24:17):
because I don't really want topick up drunk people. I'd
usually quit around and usuallyquit around 11 o'clock or 10
o'clock. Or one time I picked upthis guy. He's like, he's like,
he's like, Can I smoke in yourcar? And I was like, No, you
can't. It's it's actually not mycar. My friend's car. He's like,
dude, I'll give you 20 bucks.
(24:37):
I was like,okay, but you can only smoke
half of it.
And he's, I don't know, we juststarted talking. And he's like,
Yeah, I just met this girl Iused to go to high school with I
was talking her on Facebook, andI'm married right now, but I
don't know. I just wanted tomeet up with her. He's like, I'm
gonna meet up with her at ahotel. So basically, he's
(24:58):
telling me how he's gonna gocheat on us.
Wife.
Like, I don't know, it's justlike an interesting
conversation. I just, I justtalked to so many pretty, really
cool people. And I thought itwas a really great experience.
And I recommend giving it ashot, trying it out if you've,
if you don't know how to work onyour social skills any other
(25:19):
way, that's a really great way.
So let's see in next week, we'regoing to be talking about the
logistics of saying hello topeople, like the actual
specifics like mechanical,little details about it. And
we're also going to talk about,you know, how to contact
information from us someone elsehow to, like keep in touch, how
(25:40):
to maintain contact, or, youknow, just logistics around that
to some specific, very specificstuff. They think that's all for
this week. I hope you guys havea great week. Go out there and
make sure you talk to at leastone or two new people a day.
Keep pushing the conversations alittle further than yours than
you are used to. And I'll seeyou guys next week.
(26:07):
Take care
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