September 20, 2019 • 37 mins
One of the most important skills we can master is being a fantastic listener. Taking the time to fully understand what we're being told and using it to build better connections with someone.
But so often, we don't take the time to learn HOW to do it.
Today, we're changing that.
On the podcast this week is Oscar Trimboli. Oscar is passionate about using the gift of listening to bring positive change in homes, workplaces and the world. Oscar has experienced firsthand the transformational impact leaders and organisations can have when they listen beyond the words. Oscar is a marketing and technology industry veteran with over 30 years' experience across general management, sales, marketing and operations. He consults to organisations all around the world.
In this episode, Dan and Oscar discuss...
- How the words we say out loud might not actually be what we mean to say.
- The different types of distractions that keep us from being a better listener.
- How being focused on the speaker isn't necessarily the best way to be fully listening to someone.
- The science behind the words we say, the words we hear and the words we think.
- The four types of listeners and how it affects our relationships with people.
- Three tips that you can start using right NOW to become a better listener.
To learn more about Oscar or to purchase his new book, "Deep Listening: Impact Beyond Words" go to ListeningMyths.com
Find Dan on Instagram @cscdanmason
Join the Life Amplified Power Tribe Facebook Group! facebook.com/groups/lifeamplified
To learn more about Dan and how you can work with him one-on-one, visit creativesoulcoaching.net
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Episode eight e The Art of Deep Listening with Oscar Tremboli.
My name is Dan Mason. I was overweight, getting divorced,
battling depression, and feeling trapped in a career where I
was successful but bored and unfulfilled. And it's actually the
greatest gift I've ever been given. I use my pain
as a springboard to discover my life's purpose. Now I
(00:23):
want to share the same tools and strategies which helped
transform my life with you so you can live life Amplify.
In the book The Seven Habits Have Highly Affected People,
Stephen Covey says most people do not listen with the
intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply
hello and welcome back everybody to life Amplified. We all
(00:46):
have a deep desire to be heard. We know that
listening is important both in the office and in our
personal relationships. Yet most of us have never been taught
how to do it. For all the courses and training
that we've taken throughout our lives and how to be
a more effective public speaker, very few people have taught
us the art of deep listening. What is deep listening, well,
(01:10):
it is not deep judgment. It is not deeply listening
to sound coming out of the person's mind while you
formulate a response. It's not deep withdraw because we get
offended by what the other person is saying and coming up.
This week, you're gonna learn exactly how to become a
better listener. My guest is Oscar Tremboli. He is passionate
(01:33):
about using the gift of listening to bring positive change
in homes, workplaces, and the world. Oscar has experienced firsthand
the transformational impact leaders and organizations can have when they
listen beyond the words oscars and marketing and technology industry
veteran whatever thirty years of experience across general management, sales, marketing,
(01:53):
and operations, and today he consults organizations all over the world.
Some of the things Oscar and I will discuss in
this conversation is how the words we say out loud
might not actually be the things we mean to say.
Oscar is going to teach us the different types of
distractions that keep us from being a better listener. We'll
talk about how being focused on the speaker isn't necessarily
(02:15):
the best way to be fully listening to someone. Oscar
will teach us the science behind the words we say,
the words we hear, and the words we think. We'll
learn the four different types of listeners and how you're
listening type will affect your relationships at home and at work. Plus,
Oscar will wrap it up with giving us three tips
that we can implement today to start becoming a better listener.
(02:37):
If you want to find out more about Oscar or
purchase his new book, Deep Listening Impact Beyond Words, you
can go to Listening Myths dot com. And if you're
loving what we shared this week, let us know you're listening.
You can screenshot the podcast uploaded to Instagram or Twitter.
You can tag him at Oscar trom Bully t r I,
(02:58):
m b O l I, and you can find me
at c sc Dan Mason. Don't forget you still got
two weeks left to get in the running for that
brand new pair of Apple air Pods. If you are
moved by what you're learning each week here on the
Life Amplified Podcast, I'd love to help you amplify your
listening experience with some new air pods or an Amazon
(03:20):
gift card. All you have to do is lead us
an honest review on Apple helps us with the algorithm,
helps us get this message out to so many more
people to go here to inspire one hundred people to
create an amplified career in life. They love so you
taking two minutes out of your day to leave us
(03:41):
a brief, honest review would mean the world deadline on
that is coming up soon and we'll announce the grand
prize winner on the podcast in the meantime, Are you
ready to become a better listener? You're in the right place.
We're talking to Oscar Trimboli this week on Life Amplified.
Oscar Trinboli, Welcome to Life Amplified, sir, Thanks d and
(04:03):
I'm looking forward to listening to your questions today. It's
an interesting conversation. You say in your both Deep Listening
Impact Beyond Words that we spend really over half of
our working day listening, and I guess that makes sense.
You know, we're perpetuatly in meetings, were in conference calls,
were on voice messaging apps, even you know Facebook and
(04:26):
Instagram have voice messaging options at this point. But for
all the listening that we're doing, it also seems like
one of the number one complaints I see and hear
from people is that they don't feel heard, they don't
feel listen to, and they don't feel understood. What's going
on with that? And and what is the underlying root
(04:46):
cause that is leading to all this? We see in
colored though we listen in black and white, and the
reason where two dimensional. In our listening. We only listen
to what people say, and if we take at a
level up, we might look at their body language. But
although we spend half of our day listening, only two
percent of the Earth's population has had any training in
(05:09):
how to listen. When it comes to maths, we know
it's divide, subtract, multiply, edition, but we don't know what
that simple operators are when it comes to listening to
many of us have been taught that listening is about
being fixated on the speaker, and that's a really good
place to think about. But the reality is the biggest
(05:30):
barrier to everybody's listening. The thing that gets in their
way is themselves listening at level one. And then the
reason distractions get in our way. We've got a research database. People.
The biggest thing that gets in the way of everybody
is listening is distraction, both visual and audio. So if
all we did was switch off the distractions, everybody's listening
(05:54):
would improve dramatically, and you know, down the cost of
not listening, whether that's projects that are running late even worse,
projects that finish on time but don't deliver what you expected,
or projects that run over budget and projects that don't
deliver on time are just really good examples of the
cost of not listening when it comes to business. You know,
(06:17):
for me, I'm obsessed about the commercial implications of not listening.
That's why I'm on this quest to create a hundred
melli and deeper listeners in the world. So you alluded
to distraction getting in the way, and I think we
have all had an experience of wanting to get somebody's attention,
of having to communicate an important point, maybe an emotional point,
(06:37):
whether it be at work or in relationships, and somebody
isn't taking their eyes off the Netflix screen or they're
buried in the smartphone. There's a lot of external distractions
in the world, but how much do internal distractions play
in that really keep us from connecting and understanding each other. Yeah,
(06:58):
it's a great point, you might because distract and do
take three really distinct perspectives, the external, which are both
audio and visual, the internal which is our dialogue with ourselves,
as well as the internal, which is our dialogue about
the conversation. So both of those can distract us. And
the one that distracts as the most is actually the external.
(07:20):
That's the one in the research it tells us this
has the biggest weight. But if you can switch off
the Netflix, you can switch off the text messaging and
the notification from what app on your mobile device. Once
you move into understanding that internally you'll be distracted. It's
both your own dialogue. Think of it as a monologue
you're having with yourself. And the monologue might sound like,
(07:42):
g I've I've got to get to the gym straight
after this, or I've got to add something to what
I need to do on the weekend. Or you're having
a conversation with yourself about the last meeting because it
didn't go so well, or you've got to have oh
my goodness, I've just forgotten about that update. In fact,
Dana's happening. For people who are listening right now, they're
distracted listening to you and I in this conversation. And
(08:04):
if you understand the maths of listening, it's really simple.
I speak at a hundred and twenty five words a minute,
but you can listen it up to four hundred words
a minute, So you're filling in the gap for the
three hundred words I'm not quick enough to speak to
you on. That's a great example of an internal distraction
that's driven by the speaker. If you're conscious of that rule,
(08:25):
I'll provide you a couple of tips to get over that.
But for most of us, we're not even aware that
there's a difference between the speed at which we listen
and the speed at which the speaker speaks. We are
neurologically programmed to be distracted because we need to hear
other things for our human survival. So this is really interesting.
(08:46):
You're saying that we can speak in a hundred and
twenty words a minute, but we can hear four hundred,
or that we're thinking four hundred words over the course
of that minute. Yeah, so I'll unpack all three of
those rule. I speak at a hundred and twenty five
words a minute. You can listen at four hundred, but
I can think at nine hundred. Some people can think
(09:10):
it up to hundred or sixteen hundred words a minute,
but on average it's it's nine hundred. So there's a
vast gap between what's in my head and what I
can say. In fact, there's a one in nine chancetan
that what I'm saying is what I'm thinking. Or said
another way, there's an eight percent chance chance that what
(09:33):
I'm saying is not what I'm thinking. So if there's
an eleven percent chance that what I'm saying is what
I'm thinking, I would ask a doctor if I had
an eleven percent chance of surviving surgery, I'd ask for
a second opinion. But in most conversations, when somebody speaks,
we take it as given that what's coming out of
their mouth is what they mean. And the difference between
(09:56):
a recreational listener and a deep listener is not what
they listen to. It's what they're listening for that's not said.
It's helping the speaker to explore those other eight hundred
words that are stuck in the head and get to
a point where that's useful. And we'll spend a bit
of time today chatting about that, but we've kind of
already touched on. One of the first myths of listening
(10:18):
is the myth that you need to be focused on
the speaker. If you're not present to listen, you don't
even have the consciousness to understand that what they say
may not be what they mean. So a lot of times,
you know, we might just be emotionally vomiting the first
one words that come to mind when there's really you know,
(10:39):
up to possibly a thousand other words that we just
haven't been able to get out. So withold that explain
why sometimes people a they say things that they don't
really mean, or they might not make sense. They haven't
fully formulated their own rational thought about what it is
they're trying to communicate, or it could be both. They
(11:00):
could be very emotional and haven't formulated an idea. Unless
you're a world rehearse stage actor. The likelihood the first
thing that comes out of your mouth is what you mean,
there's an anty nine percent chance it's not. Those kind
of odds are not worth it. Here's a couple of things.
Everybody listening will get nod as I say this if
(11:22):
you wait just a little longer and say to them
a couple of simple phrases, Hey Dan, tell me more,
Hey Dan, what else are you thinking about on this topic?
And you will notice and This is consistent across cultures,
This is consistent across age groups, This is consistent across genders,
This is consistent across workplaces and personal experience. The person
(11:45):
will draw in a breath and go, well, actually, and
they'll use a couple of phrases. After that, they'll say
things like, well, actually what I should have said was,
or they'll say, well, actually, what's really in talten to
me right now is or well, actually thinking about it
(12:06):
I should be talking about and they'll put and they'll
move on. These change of state and code words means
they are appealing those extra eight hundred word layers off
the onion of their mind. And our job isn't to
sit there and go eight times, tell me more, tell
me more, tell me more. Quite often, just the second
(12:26):
time that they come to a point, we can use
silence to help them explore that a little bit further
as well. Most people aren't even conscious that they can
use silence in a really powerful and effective way when
it comes to listening. And when I run these workshops
for organizations and do some consulting work, I always say
(12:48):
to people, and this is a disease in the West.
It's very different in the East, in China, in Korea,
in Japan, silence is a sign of wisdom, as to
sign the seniority. It's a sign of authority. If you
just pause, it lets their mind catch up with their
mouth and then they can think about it a little
(13:10):
bit more. But in the West we use these phrases
like pregnant pause or awkward silence, and we don't have
a great relationship when it comes to silence. In the
great ancient traditions, whether that's the Chinese, whether it's the
Inuit of North America, the Aborigines of Australia, the Jungle
(13:30):
peoples of Africa, and the jungle peoples of South America,
they're all amazing storytellers, which helps people train their listening mind.
But what they do really skillfully there is use silence
in their stories as well. So treat silence dan like
it's another word. Listen to the beginning, the middle, and
(13:51):
the end of silence, and you'll be shocked what comes
out of the speaker's mouth straight away, because a good
listener listens to make sense for themselves. A great listener
helps to make sense of what the speaker saying. For
the speaker, it's your job as a listener to help
the speak of makes sense of what they're saying. It
(14:11):
doesn't necessarily need to make sense for you. Sure, And
that's an incredible point you just made, and I want
to thank you for sharing that. But I want to
go back just to a point that we were talking
about earlier. If we're operating an apprentice, that the words
coming out of the speaker's mouth might not actually be
(14:32):
what they mean. And I think about this just in
terms of maybe marriages, romantic relationships. You know, a lot
of times when we're speaking, particularly from an emotional place,
and the words are coming out quicker than the thought process,
we can get into using these big grand statements of
you know, you never do this or you always do this,
(14:53):
which can be a huge emotional trigger for the listener.
Depending on what your relationship is to the person. This
could happen in the workplace with a boss or a
colleague or somebody that you respect as well. In my experience,
a lot of times that can lead to judging it right,
we can it can almost put us on the defensive,
(15:14):
and then listening goes out the window. Right if you
feel that somebody is speaking in an emotional way and
blaming you, or that they're accusing you. It's hard to
tune in in the message because you start formulating a response,
you feel like you have to defend yourself. How does
that play out in a listening relationship. How can somebody
have the presence of mind to not be triggered by
(15:37):
what is being said, particularly if the words are coming
out in an emotional way where they're feeling attacked, and
to really be able to hold that space and help
the speaker feel heard. It reminds me of the beautiful
story of the CEO I was working with. His name
was Mike, and it's about three years ago, and he
bring me up on a Monday morning. It was about
(15:58):
half pastite, and he was in his car and so
was I and he said, Oscar, you nearly cost me
my marriage last Friday. And I said, oh, Mick, tell
me more. He said it wasnt We've cleared the dinner table.
We put the kids to bed, and my wife sat
down at the dinner table, which was completely clear, and
(16:19):
said sit down, we need to talk. So mix it's
down and rather than sit across the table. Here's a
really good listening technique for anybody who ever sits across
square tables, try and sit diagonally opposite them and be
as physically close to them as possible, which is what
he did. He'd been working on my listening executive program,
(16:42):
so he sat down, made sure his eyes were at
her eye level. And she said, you need to come
clean with me. I know you're having an affair. And
he had the presence in that moment to go tell
me more. And she said, in the last ninety days
you've paid me own much attention. I know something's different,
(17:04):
so just be honest with me. You can tell me.
I can handle the truth. Who are you having an
affair with? And mix said, and he paused, and he waited,
and he didn't jump in straight away, and he played
a little game, and he put his hand on his
wife's hand and said, it's not what you think. I'm
seeing a man. She started crying, and he said, it's
(17:32):
not what you think, though, I've been working with a
listening coach for the last ninety days. And she breathed
out and she smiled, and she said, oh my god,
it's like we'd dating all over again. I'm so relieved.
I've never felt sexier than I have in the last
ninety days, because you've paid me so much attention. Now,
(17:55):
if you talk to Mickey's he doesn't think he paid
her enormously much more attention. But what he didn't do
is try and fix things. He didn't try and interrupt.
And as he said to me just before he hung
up the call, he said, Oscar, that was what happened
afterwards was better than our honeymoon. And I probably can't
go into what he said on this recording, but that's
(18:16):
what listening can create for the other person, if it's
done in a way that's about them. Sometimes listening can
be powerful in in personal relationships equally, Dan, you've got
to think the absence of listening would create exactly the opposite.
It will create distance, it will create conflict, it will
(18:38):
create frustration for both parties as well. You talk about
this in the book, and you just alluded to it
a minute ago that there are four types of listeners.
Now we mentioned earlier here in the interview. There's the
people who are just lost in their own mind. They're
either future tripping about the next conversation that's coming up,
maybe they're living in the past about something that happened
(18:59):
or leader that day, or they're busy just like formulating
a response to you know what they're going to say
without even hearing what's going to be said. You also
mentioned the interrupters. I feel like this is a huge
problem for most men. We're problem solvers by nature. We
want to just fix stuff. Yeah, so what the research
(19:23):
tells us is men listen to fix and women listen
to feel and guys, the women aren't broken, you don't
need to fix them. The mind with the problem is
the mind with the solution. If you just pause and
listen to them a little longer, you'll be surprised what
will happen merely by listening. So there slightly different variations
(19:46):
but not statistically significant, between the way women and men listen,
but that is probably one of the predominant ways. There's
four villains of listening, Dan, there's the lost listener, the
interrupting listener, the shrewd listener, and the dramatic listener, and
each of those have different kind of characteristics based on
what our researchers said, we've talked about the loss the
(20:08):
interrupter definitely is somebody who can't wait for the silence
and just jump in. The dramatic listener is a little
bit skewed more towards women than men, but not much. Again,
the dramatic listener will say things like, I'm really struggling
at the moment with my manager. What the dramatic listener
(20:30):
will say is, oh, you think you've got a bad manager,
let me tell you about mine. Or they might say, Um,
you know, really struggling with this merger we're going through
at the moment, you think you've got a tough merger.
Ten years ago, I went through a merger. Let me
tell you about that. My favorite as a client story
she went to see her boss and had to explain
(20:50):
to her that on Wednesday she was going she needed
time off to go to her grandmother's funeral, and by
the time the word funeral had gone out of her
her boss spent the next twenty minutes telling her about
when her grandmother had died, and at the end of that,
my client said, so is it okay if I go
to the funeral on Wednesday? They think that your story
(21:11):
is the stage for them to tell an even bigger story.
M My god, even like it. Maybe this means I'm
not doing a good job listening, because as you were
explaining that I started thinking of one specific family member. No, no,
that happens the like, I swear to god, she would
have like cut off Martin Luther King in the middle
of his speech and been like, oh my god, I
(21:32):
had a dream last night too, let me tell you
about it. Yeah. The last listening villain is the shrewd
listening villain, disproportionately represented by sales professionals, management consultants, anybody
who's an architect, a lawyer, an account and anybody who
takes a brief and sales time. It could be a doctor,
(21:54):
it could be a dentist. And what they're doing is
they're listening intently. They giving you a beautiful nod, their
hand is on their chin and they're listening intently, and
you think, wow, this person is really listening intently. What's
going through the shrewd listeners mind is, oh, will you
hurry up. That's the world's most basic problem. You're going
(22:14):
to tell me about three more problems before I'm going
to interrupt you. And that is so simple to solve.
I am so smart. Why is this taking so long?
And in doing that and thinking they've already got the
solution to the problem. Most of the times these people
are diagnosing the wrong thing because they haven't listened to
what the problem actually is. So shrewd listeners again disproportionately
(22:40):
represented in those professions that need to take a brief.
So you know, if you if you want to understand
some of these listening villains, if you visit listening myths
dot com you can download these and understand more importantly
what to do about it. Listening Dan, it's relation and
(23:00):
it's situational. By that, I mean you'll listen differently to
a manager than your will to your mother. You'll listen
differently to a principle than you would to a policeman.
You'll listen differently to an accountant than you will from
an actor, for example. So that's the relational aspects of it.
But situationally, you'll listen differently as well. So I'll be
(23:23):
honest with you and say, Hi, my name's Oscar, and
I'm a shrewd listener in the workplace and I'm a
lost listener at home. So I listened very differently when
it comes to listening at home because my listening batteries
are pretty much dead by the time I get home,
and lost is the most comfortable place for me to be,
but in the workplace, if I'm not careful, I'm a
(23:45):
very shrewd listener. We are all those villains at different times.
Yet because we're not conscious of it, we don't know
what to do about it. So once people learn their
listening villains, they always say to me, it's tattooed on
my ain, I can never remove it, and then they
start the journey to become a conscious and deep listener.
One of the other things that we talked about briefly
(24:07):
being able to listen to the unsaid. I've seen that
quote from Peter Drucker in the past. Also, what exactly
does that mean though? Is that reading body language? What
does it mean to be able to pick up on
the unset as a listener? Yes, so this is the
ultimate ninja move of deep listeners. Listening to the unsaid
(24:29):
is listening to those eight hundred missing words that are
stuck in the speaker's mind. Dan, it's not about body language.
So Level one is listening to yourself. Level two is
listening to the content, which is both audio, video, visual
and your state. What's the energy the person is projecting.
Level three listening for the context they talk about the
(24:51):
past more or the present more do they talk about
themselves as individuals or in teams they talk about problems
or solutions. Have they given you the full backstory? The
four is listening for what's unset. When you can untap
what's unsaid, everybody begins to make more sense of what
happens when a lot of these common examples we've used down.
We're talking about this in the context of one on
(25:13):
one conversations in a group situation I was in. I
was doing a workshop in a technology company and they've
been enjoying fantastic plus growth over three years, and everything
had flattened out, and I was working with the leadership
team and they were all really energetic team and a
(25:35):
group of eleven men and one woman and her name
was Elaine. And we've gone around the room and done
a very simple exercise describe our company as an animal.
And it was about twenty minutes before lunch, and it
was one of those very dusty rooms, and everybody was
really keen to get to lunch. And we'd heard from
(25:55):
everybody describing an eagle and offspray, some kind of really
far s bird of prey that could maneuver really really
quickly and The last person who hadn't spoken was Elaine.
Now we were at noon by the time we've gone
around the room, and the CEO was kind of giving
me those evil villain laser eyes to kind of look at.
(26:15):
He was pointing to my watch, kind of going, let's
get to lunch. And I just gestured to Elane. I
didn't say anything, I didn't ask anything. I just put
my hand out to her to invite her into the conversation.
And she paused. And she was a card carrying member
of the introvert community. And they're the kind of people
that when you're at a conference and they say, hey,
(26:37):
if you're an extrovert, put your hand up, and they
put their hand up, and they probably clap or they
stand up, and if you're an introvert, put your hand up,
and they kind of she busually put your hand up.
Card carry member of the introvert community will never just
disclose that they're a member of that community. They will
never put their hand up. That's how quiet she was.
But what she said was I thought it was obvious
(26:59):
where a snake he could hurt a pin drop in
the room. Now, Dan, what's going through your head when
she says I thought we were a snake. What are
the characteristics of snake? Did you think about? But for me,
I think that's something that's maybe slimy, that it's kind
of devious, that's slithering. You know, when you think of
like somebody being a snake, that's not usually a good attribute.
(27:21):
They're dishonest, and that's what I think. The rest of
the room thought we could have stopped there, but I didn't.
I said, tell me more, and she said, well, I
thought it was obvious. What we've forgotten to do is
what snakes do. We forgot to shed our skin for
our customers. Why we've been successful is every season we
(27:43):
would shed our skin to something new and reimagined because
our customers needed that. And in our speed to be eagles,
we're forgotten to shed our skin. And the room kind
of exhaled, and all of a sudden it was a
completely different meaning to what a snake brings to the
commerce ation. Now we could have gone to lunch, and
I asked the room, is it true? And everybody kind
(28:05):
of went, yeah, alright, we've gotten about the agility we
had in early days. So one o'clock four twelve months later,
the organization has internal product code names around snake names.
They have little snake beanie toys. They include snakes in
the presentation. They talk about the importance of shedding their skin,
(28:28):
and that has many dimensions in their way. They talked.
They talked about staff not holding back issues in the business.
We need to shed our skin. This shedding of skin
can be completely different. Now, what happened as a result
of this. They created two new products because they went
back and listened to some customers, and as a result
(28:49):
of that, they started growing at a hundred percent rather
than thirty percent, which is what their aspiration was. But
the reality is, if we didn't listen to that voice
that wasn't heard in that meeting, none of that would
ever have taken place. So sometimes than listening to what's
on said is as simple as getting the opinion of
everybody in a meeting room. Nothing is more frustrating than
(29:10):
attending a meeting with six people and you only ever
hear from three. A skillful leader, a great facilitator, a
great manager will make sure that they hear from all voices.
They don't have to be an equal propulsion, but if
you hear from all voices, you'll hear what's unsaid, and
then you'll have an impact beyond words, as they did
in this case. Beautiful. You know you've illustrated a couple
(29:32):
of points here. A lot of times when we talk
about communication in the workplace, in romantic relationships and friendships
with family, it's usually in regards to what is being said.
But is it fair to say that perhaps listening is
(29:52):
an even more important skill than than being a great
or eloquent speaker. If you can imagine a world class
athlete preparing to train for four years for the Olympic marathon.
It's the last event, it's the premier event of the Olympics,
(30:13):
and we've all been taught how to speak, and we're
kind of like the coach at the beginning of four
years for an Olympic marathon. Imagine we said to the
Olympic Marathona, you're going to run all this next four years,
but you can only use your right leg. You can
only use one half of what you're capable of. You
(30:33):
would be an amazing runner. You would run in circles,
but you wouldn't be as fast as everybody else. Communication
is fifty speaking listening, and yet most people have by
the age of thirty done three training courses on how
to listen. By the age of forty, they've done ten,
(30:54):
and by the age of fifty they've done twenty and
actually accelerates the older you get. And yet by the
age of thirty, nobody's done any work on understanding what
good listening is. Here's three three of my funniest stats.
Stand of us think we're above average car drivers, eight
five percent of us think we're above average i Q
(31:17):
and of us think we're above average listeners. And it's
statistically impossible because only fifty of us should be above
average on any of those dimensions. But nobody ever taught
us what good looks like. None of us know how
to do that. So back to the point. The point
is this, if you're going to spend half your life
(31:38):
speaking and half your life listening, maybe the leadership hack,
maybe the communications hack of the one century, is simply
you learning to listen a little bit better, because more
speaking isn't going to get us. Shorter meetings isn't going
to get us. Projects that run on time isn't going
to get us relationships that are amazeing rather than frustrating.
(32:02):
So I like that Olympic runner who's practicing for the marathon.
I used both their legs, and the right leg of
communication is speaking, the left leg is listening. So let's
make sure we've got a balanced approach towards that. Anything
in corporate America that reduces phrases like hey, let's circle
(32:22):
back on that next week and talk about this more,
that is a positive skill and I am absolutely on
board with it. One last question for you, and I
would encourage people to check out your book, Deep Listening
Impact Beyond Words, And obviously you give a lot of
different examples and a lot of things here in the
book that can help people sharpen their skills. If maybe
(32:45):
there were three things that that the listener could implement
into their life today that is going to help them
not just listen to people, but truly hear them. What
would be the three most important tips that you would give?
Three tips aren't anything sophistomicated or complicated or really difficult.
(33:06):
Tip number one turn your phone to flight mode. Tip
number two drink water. So if you're going to be
in a conversation with someone, drink a glass of water.
And if you've just had a cup of coffee, drink
an extra glass of water. A hydrated brain is a
listening brain. And tip number three is really simple. Just
listen to your breathing. The deeper you breathe, the deeper
(33:30):
you listen. So right now, if you just take a
breath in through your nose, down into your diaphragm, and
then back up in and out through your mouth, if
you do three deep breaths like that, it's really simple.
I'll tell you how I integrated into my life, Dan.
When I walk into the lobby and I'm about to
see a client in a building, the minute I step
(33:51):
into the elevator, off my phone goes actually off, not
into flight mode, but there are some mobile phone addicts
out there, so flight motors is good as they can get.
My phone goes off, it goes into my bag. When
I go to reception, they often offer me tea or coffee.
Always ask for a glass of water and a glass
of water for those in the meeting. And then while
I'm sitting down and waiting, I just take three deep breaths.
(34:14):
That centers me, That gets me present, That gets all
the previous conversation out of my head and the next one.
There are many, many, many, many more tips. If you
download the five minutes of listening at listening dot com.
But those three tips address of the issues around distraction
that people struggle with when it comes to listening. Switch
(34:36):
your phone, I fly, no drink water, three deep breaths.
You'll become a much better listener. The more you're drinking
water and the more you're focused on your breath of
the less you're cutting other people off to. So I'm
sure that those those are game changers. Oscar, Thank you
so much for the time today. Where can people go
(34:57):
if they want to download the book, got to visit
listening myths dot com, or go and visit Amazon and
you can grab the book there as well. Oscar trim Bolie,
such a pleasure to talk to you. Hopefully you feel
listened to today and hopefully our listeners enjoyed listening to
the message. It's an important one. Thank you so much.
(35:19):
Thanks for listening. Dan really really enjoyed that interview of
Oscar is so passionate on the topic, and one of
the things that stood out to me upon going back
and listening again with the idea that deep listening starts
with listening to ourselves. You know, so often it's hard
for us to get our needs met at work and
(35:41):
at home because we're not really tuned into that internal GPS.
We're not in tune with our intuition, and sometimes we're
just reacting at the level of emotion without knowing what
it is that we really need and what the request
is that we're asking from the people in our lives.
And look, maybe you're a person who is this connected
from your own intuition. Maybe you're a person who doesn't
(36:03):
feel listened to by the people around you, but you
haven't been doing a good job listening to yourself. It's
keeping you trapped in a soul sucking job, keeping you
trapped in a toxic relationship. That's what my coaching programs
are designed to free you from. If you want to
create an amplified career in life you love, all you
have to do is fill out the application on my
website Creative Soul Coaching dot net. If you love the
(36:27):
interview this week, this podcast was meaningful for you, Please
be sure to share this with your coworkers, share it
with your spouse, your significant other, or just screenshot it
uploaded to Instagram or Twitter and let us know you're listening.
You can tag me at c sc Dan Mason, and
you can find Oscar at Oscar Trim Bolly t R,
I am b o L I Don't Forget. His book
(36:50):
Deep Listening Impact Beyond Words is on sale now at
listening myths dot com. Quick moment, I want to shout out.
Our listener of the week is Rita in CS. She
gave us five stars on Apple. She says, since I've
discovered your podcast, I've been listening to it NonStop on
my way to and from work, during my break times,
while cooking at home, and even before I go to sleep.
(37:12):
I've had countless aha moments while listening, taking notes and
writing down my own questions that I hope to find
answers to one day. Rita so happy to know that
the podcast is offering you value. And if you are
a person out there who's really enjoying what we share,
don't forget you can get in the running for that
brand new pair of Apple air Pods or an Amazon
(37:34):
gift card. It's your choice. Just leave us an honest
review up on Apple. The deadline coming up in two weeks.
I love you so much for listening. Thank you for
spending this time with me this week, and in the meantime,
turned down the volume on your negativity. Turn up the
volume on your purpose so you can live life amplified.
I'll talk to you next week.
Episode eight e The Art of Deep Listening with Oscar Tremboli.
My name is Dan Mason. I was overweight, getting divorced,
battling depression, and feeling trapped in a career where I
was successful but bored and unfulfilled. And it's actually the
greatest gift I've ever been given. I use my pain
as a springboard to discover my life's purpose. Now I
(00:23):
want to share the same tools and strategies which helped
transform my life with you so you can live life Amplify.
In the book The Seven Habits Have Highly Affected People,
Stephen Covey says most people do not listen with the
intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply
hello and welcome back everybody to life Amplified. We all
(00:46):
have a deep desire to be heard. We know that
listening is important both in the office and in our
personal relationships. Yet most of us have never been taught
how to do it. For all the courses and training
that we've taken throughout our lives and how to be
a more effective public speaker, very few people have taught
us the art of deep listening. What is deep listening, well,
(01:10):
it is not deep judgment. It is not deeply listening
to sound coming out of the person's mind while you
formulate a response. It's not deep withdraw because we get
offended by what the other person is saying and coming up.
This week, you're gonna learn exactly how to become a
better listener. My guest is Oscar Tremboli. He is passionate
(01:33):
about using the gift of listening to bring positive change
in homes, workplaces, and the world. Oscar has experienced firsthand
the transformational impact leaders and organizations can have when they
listen beyond the words oscars and marketing and technology industry
veteran whatever thirty years of experience across general management, sales, marketing,
(01:53):
and operations, and today he consults organizations all over the world.
Some of the things Oscar and I will discuss in
this conversation is how the words we say out loud
might not actually be the things we mean to say.
Oscar is going to teach us the different types of
distractions that keep us from being a better listener. We'll
talk about how being focused on the speaker isn't necessarily
(02:15):
the best way to be fully listening to someone. Oscar
will teach us the science behind the words we say,
the words we hear, and the words we think. We'll
learn the four different types of listeners and how you're
listening type will affect your relationships at home and at work. Plus,
Oscar will wrap it up with giving us three tips
that we can implement today to start becoming a better listener.
(02:37):
If you want to find out more about Oscar or
purchase his new book, Deep Listening Impact Beyond Words, you
can go to Listening Myths dot com. And if you're
loving what we shared this week, let us know you're listening.
You can screenshot the podcast uploaded to Instagram or Twitter.
You can tag him at Oscar trom Bully t r I,
(02:58):
m b O l I, and you can find me
at c sc Dan Mason. Don't forget you still got
two weeks left to get in the running for that
brand new pair of Apple air Pods. If you are
moved by what you're learning each week here on the
Life Amplified Podcast, I'd love to help you amplify your
listening experience with some new air pods or an Amazon
(03:20):
gift card. All you have to do is lead us
an honest review on Apple helps us with the algorithm,
helps us get this message out to so many more
people to go here to inspire one hundred people to
create an amplified career in life. They love so you
taking two minutes out of your day to leave us
(03:41):
a brief, honest review would mean the world deadline on
that is coming up soon and we'll announce the grand
prize winner on the podcast in the meantime, Are you
ready to become a better listener? You're in the right place.
We're talking to Oscar Trimboli this week on Life Amplified.
Oscar Trinboli, Welcome to Life Amplified, sir, Thanks d and
(04:03):
I'm looking forward to listening to your questions today. It's
an interesting conversation. You say in your both Deep Listening
Impact Beyond Words that we spend really over half of
our working day listening, and I guess that makes sense.
You know, we're perpetuatly in meetings, were in conference calls,
were on voice messaging apps, even you know Facebook and
(04:26):
Instagram have voice messaging options at this point. But for
all the listening that we're doing, it also seems like
one of the number one complaints I see and hear
from people is that they don't feel heard, they don't
feel listen to, and they don't feel understood. What's going
on with that? And and what is the underlying root
(04:46):
cause that is leading to all this? We see in
colored though we listen in black and white, and the
reason where two dimensional. In our listening. We only listen
to what people say, and if we take at a
level up, we might look at their body language. But
although we spend half of our day listening, only two
percent of the Earth's population has had any training in
(05:09):
how to listen. When it comes to maths, we know
it's divide, subtract, multiply, edition, but we don't know what
that simple operators are when it comes to listening to
many of us have been taught that listening is about
being fixated on the speaker, and that's a really good
place to think about. But the reality is the biggest
(05:30):
barrier to everybody's listening. The thing that gets in their
way is themselves listening at level one. And then the
reason distractions get in our way. We've got a research database. People.
The biggest thing that gets in the way of everybody
is listening is distraction, both visual and audio. So if
all we did was switch off the distractions, everybody's listening
(05:54):
would improve dramatically, and you know, down the cost of
not listening, whether that's projects that are running late even worse,
projects that finish on time but don't deliver what you expected,
or projects that run over budget and projects that don't
deliver on time are just really good examples of the
cost of not listening when it comes to business. You know,
(06:17):
for me, I'm obsessed about the commercial implications of not listening.
That's why I'm on this quest to create a hundred
melli and deeper listeners in the world. So you alluded
to distraction getting in the way, and I think we
have all had an experience of wanting to get somebody's attention,
of having to communicate an important point, maybe an emotional point,
(06:37):
whether it be at work or in relationships, and somebody
isn't taking their eyes off the Netflix screen or they're
buried in the smartphone. There's a lot of external distractions
in the world, but how much do internal distractions play
in that really keep us from connecting and understanding each other. Yeah,
(06:58):
it's a great point, you might because distract and do
take three really distinct perspectives, the external, which are both
audio and visual, the internal which is our dialogue with ourselves,
as well as the internal, which is our dialogue about
the conversation. So both of those can distract us. And
the one that distracts as the most is actually the external.
(07:20):
That's the one in the research it tells us this
has the biggest weight. But if you can switch off
the Netflix, you can switch off the text messaging and
the notification from what app on your mobile device. Once
you move into understanding that internally you'll be distracted. It's
both your own dialogue. Think of it as a monologue
you're having with yourself. And the monologue might sound like,
(07:42):
g I've I've got to get to the gym straight
after this, or I've got to add something to what
I need to do on the weekend. Or you're having
a conversation with yourself about the last meeting because it
didn't go so well, or you've got to have oh
my goodness, I've just forgotten about that update. In fact,
Dana's happening. For people who are listening right now, they're
distracted listening to you and I in this conversation. And
(08:04):
if you understand the maths of listening, it's really simple.
I speak at a hundred and twenty five words a minute,
but you can listen it up to four hundred words
a minute, So you're filling in the gap for the
three hundred words I'm not quick enough to speak to
you on. That's a great example of an internal distraction
that's driven by the speaker. If you're conscious of that rule,
(08:25):
I'll provide you a couple of tips to get over that.
But for most of us, we're not even aware that
there's a difference between the speed at which we listen
and the speed at which the speaker speaks. We are
neurologically programmed to be distracted because we need to hear
other things for our human survival. So this is really interesting.
(08:46):
You're saying that we can speak in a hundred and
twenty words a minute, but we can hear four hundred,
or that we're thinking four hundred words over the course
of that minute. Yeah, so I'll unpack all three of
those rule. I speak at a hundred and twenty five
words a minute. You can listen at four hundred, but
I can think at nine hundred. Some people can think
(09:10):
it up to hundred or sixteen hundred words a minute,
but on average it's it's nine hundred. So there's a
vast gap between what's in my head and what I
can say. In fact, there's a one in nine chancetan
that what I'm saying is what I'm thinking. Or said
another way, there's an eight percent chance chance that what
(09:33):
I'm saying is not what I'm thinking. So if there's
an eleven percent chance that what I'm saying is what
I'm thinking, I would ask a doctor if I had
an eleven percent chance of surviving surgery, I'd ask for
a second opinion. But in most conversations, when somebody speaks,
we take it as given that what's coming out of
their mouth is what they mean. And the difference between
(09:56):
a recreational listener and a deep listener is not what
they listen to. It's what they're listening for that's not said.
It's helping the speaker to explore those other eight hundred
words that are stuck in the head and get to
a point where that's useful. And we'll spend a bit
of time today chatting about that, but we've kind of
already touched on. One of the first myths of listening
(10:18):
is the myth that you need to be focused on
the speaker. If you're not present to listen, you don't
even have the consciousness to understand that what they say
may not be what they mean. So a lot of times,
you know, we might just be emotionally vomiting the first
one words that come to mind when there's really you know,
(10:39):
up to possibly a thousand other words that we just
haven't been able to get out. So withold that explain
why sometimes people a they say things that they don't
really mean, or they might not make sense. They haven't
fully formulated their own rational thought about what it is
they're trying to communicate, or it could be both. They
(11:00):
could be very emotional and haven't formulated an idea. Unless
you're a world rehearse stage actor. The likelihood the first
thing that comes out of your mouth is what you mean,
there's an anty nine percent chance it's not. Those kind
of odds are not worth it. Here's a couple of things.
Everybody listening will get nod as I say this if
(11:22):
you wait just a little longer and say to them
a couple of simple phrases, Hey Dan, tell me more,
Hey Dan, what else are you thinking about on this topic?
And you will notice and This is consistent across cultures,
This is consistent across age groups, This is consistent across genders,
This is consistent across workplaces and personal experience. The person
(11:45):
will draw in a breath and go, well, actually, and
they'll use a couple of phrases. After that, they'll say
things like, well, actually what I should have said was,
or they'll say, well, actually, what's really in talten to
me right now is or well, actually thinking about it
(12:06):
I should be talking about and they'll put and they'll
move on. These change of state and code words means
they are appealing those extra eight hundred word layers off
the onion of their mind. And our job isn't to
sit there and go eight times, tell me more, tell
me more, tell me more. Quite often, just the second
(12:26):
time that they come to a point, we can use
silence to help them explore that a little bit further
as well. Most people aren't even conscious that they can
use silence in a really powerful and effective way when
it comes to listening. And when I run these workshops
for organizations and do some consulting work, I always say
(12:48):
to people, and this is a disease in the West.
It's very different in the East, in China, in Korea,
in Japan, silence is a sign of wisdom, as to
sign the seniority. It's a sign of authority. If you
just pause, it lets their mind catch up with their
mouth and then they can think about it a little
(13:10):
bit more. But in the West we use these phrases
like pregnant pause or awkward silence, and we don't have
a great relationship when it comes to silence. In the
great ancient traditions, whether that's the Chinese, whether it's the
Inuit of North America, the Aborigines of Australia, the Jungle
(13:30):
peoples of Africa, and the jungle peoples of South America,
they're all amazing storytellers, which helps people train their listening mind.
But what they do really skillfully there is use silence
in their stories as well. So treat silence dan like
it's another word. Listen to the beginning, the middle, and
(13:51):
the end of silence, and you'll be shocked what comes
out of the speaker's mouth straight away, because a good
listener listens to make sense for themselves. A great listener
helps to make sense of what the speaker saying. For
the speaker, it's your job as a listener to help
the speak of makes sense of what they're saying. It
(14:11):
doesn't necessarily need to make sense for you. Sure, And
that's an incredible point you just made, and I want
to thank you for sharing that. But I want to
go back just to a point that we were talking
about earlier. If we're operating an apprentice, that the words
coming out of the speaker's mouth might not actually be
(14:32):
what they mean. And I think about this just in
terms of maybe marriages, romantic relationships. You know, a lot
of times when we're speaking, particularly from an emotional place,
and the words are coming out quicker than the thought process,
we can get into using these big grand statements of
you know, you never do this or you always do this,
(14:53):
which can be a huge emotional trigger for the listener.
Depending on what your relationship is to the person. This
could happen in the workplace with a boss or a
colleague or somebody that you respect as well. In my experience,
a lot of times that can lead to judging it right,
we can it can almost put us on the defensive,
(15:14):
and then listening goes out the window. Right if you
feel that somebody is speaking in an emotional way and
blaming you, or that they're accusing you. It's hard to
tune in in the message because you start formulating a response,
you feel like you have to defend yourself. How does
that play out in a listening relationship. How can somebody
have the presence of mind to not be triggered by
(15:37):
what is being said, particularly if the words are coming
out in an emotional way where they're feeling attacked, and
to really be able to hold that space and help
the speaker feel heard. It reminds me of the beautiful
story of the CEO I was working with. His name
was Mike, and it's about three years ago, and he
bring me up on a Monday morning. It was about
(15:58):
half pastite, and he was in his car and so
was I and he said, Oscar, you nearly cost me
my marriage last Friday. And I said, oh, Mick, tell
me more. He said it wasnt We've cleared the dinner table.
We put the kids to bed, and my wife sat
down at the dinner table, which was completely clear, and
(16:19):
said sit down, we need to talk. So mix it's
down and rather than sit across the table. Here's a
really good listening technique for anybody who ever sits across
square tables, try and sit diagonally opposite them and be
as physically close to them as possible, which is what
he did. He'd been working on my listening executive program,
(16:42):
so he sat down, made sure his eyes were at
her eye level. And she said, you need to come
clean with me. I know you're having an affair. And
he had the presence in that moment to go tell
me more. And she said, in the last ninety days
you've paid me own much attention. I know something's different,
(17:04):
so just be honest with me. You can tell me.
I can handle the truth. Who are you having an
affair with? And mix said, and he paused, and he waited,
and he didn't jump in straight away, and he played
a little game, and he put his hand on his
wife's hand and said, it's not what you think. I'm
seeing a man. She started crying, and he said, it's
(17:32):
not what you think, though, I've been working with a
listening coach for the last ninety days. And she breathed
out and she smiled, and she said, oh my god,
it's like we'd dating all over again. I'm so relieved.
I've never felt sexier than I have in the last
ninety days, because you've paid me so much attention. Now,
(17:55):
if you talk to Mickey's he doesn't think he paid
her enormously much more attention. But what he didn't do
is try and fix things. He didn't try and interrupt.
And as he said to me just before he hung
up the call, he said, Oscar, that was what happened
afterwards was better than our honeymoon. And I probably can't
go into what he said on this recording, but that's
(18:16):
what listening can create for the other person, if it's
done in a way that's about them. Sometimes listening can
be powerful in in personal relationships equally, Dan, you've got
to think the absence of listening would create exactly the opposite.
It will create distance, it will create conflict, it will
(18:38):
create frustration for both parties as well. You talk about
this in the book, and you just alluded to it
a minute ago that there are four types of listeners.
Now we mentioned earlier here in the interview. There's the
people who are just lost in their own mind. They're
either future tripping about the next conversation that's coming up,
maybe they're living in the past about something that happened
(18:59):
or leader that day, or they're busy just like formulating
a response to you know what they're going to say
without even hearing what's going to be said. You also
mentioned the interrupters. I feel like this is a huge
problem for most men. We're problem solvers by nature. We
want to just fix stuff. Yeah, so what the research
(19:23):
tells us is men listen to fix and women listen
to feel and guys, the women aren't broken, you don't
need to fix them. The mind with the problem is
the mind with the solution. If you just pause and
listen to them a little longer, you'll be surprised what
will happen merely by listening. So there slightly different variations
(19:46):
but not statistically significant, between the way women and men listen,
but that is probably one of the predominant ways. There's
four villains of listening, Dan, there's the lost listener, the
interrupting listener, the shrewd listener, and the dramatic listener, and
each of those have different kind of characteristics based on
what our researchers said, we've talked about the loss the
(20:08):
interrupter definitely is somebody who can't wait for the silence
and just jump in. The dramatic listener is a little
bit skewed more towards women than men, but not much. Again,
the dramatic listener will say things like, I'm really struggling
at the moment with my manager. What the dramatic listener
(20:30):
will say is, oh, you think you've got a bad manager,
let me tell you about mine. Or they might say, Um,
you know, really struggling with this merger we're going through
at the moment, you think you've got a tough merger.
Ten years ago, I went through a merger. Let me
tell you about that. My favorite as a client story
she went to see her boss and had to explain
(20:50):
to her that on Wednesday she was going she needed
time off to go to her grandmother's funeral, and by
the time the word funeral had gone out of her
her boss spent the next twenty minutes telling her about
when her grandmother had died, and at the end of that,
my client said, so is it okay if I go
to the funeral on Wednesday? They think that your story
(21:11):
is the stage for them to tell an even bigger story.
M My god, even like it. Maybe this means I'm
not doing a good job listening, because as you were
explaining that I started thinking of one specific family member. No, no,
that happens the like, I swear to god, she would
have like cut off Martin Luther King in the middle
of his speech and been like, oh my god, I
(21:32):
had a dream last night too, let me tell you
about it. Yeah. The last listening villain is the shrewd
listening villain, disproportionately represented by sales professionals, management consultants, anybody
who's an architect, a lawyer, an account and anybody who
takes a brief and sales time. It could be a doctor,
(21:54):
it could be a dentist. And what they're doing is
they're listening intently. They giving you a beautiful nod, their
hand is on their chin and they're listening intently, and
you think, wow, this person is really listening intently. What's
going through the shrewd listeners mind is, oh, will you
hurry up. That's the world's most basic problem. You're going
(22:14):
to tell me about three more problems before I'm going
to interrupt you. And that is so simple to solve.
I am so smart. Why is this taking so long?
And in doing that and thinking they've already got the
solution to the problem. Most of the times these people
are diagnosing the wrong thing because they haven't listened to
what the problem actually is. So shrewd listeners again disproportionately
(22:40):
represented in those professions that need to take a brief.
So you know, if you if you want to understand
some of these listening villains, if you visit listening myths
dot com you can download these and understand more importantly
what to do about it. Listening Dan, it's relation and
(23:00):
it's situational. By that, I mean you'll listen differently to
a manager than your will to your mother. You'll listen
differently to a principle than you would to a policeman.
You'll listen differently to an accountant than you will from
an actor, for example. So that's the relational aspects of it.
But situationally, you'll listen differently as well. So I'll be
(23:23):
honest with you and say, Hi, my name's Oscar, and
I'm a shrewd listener in the workplace and I'm a
lost listener at home. So I listened very differently when
it comes to listening at home because my listening batteries
are pretty much dead by the time I get home,
and lost is the most comfortable place for me to be,
but in the workplace, if I'm not careful, I'm a
(23:45):
very shrewd listener. We are all those villains at different times.
Yet because we're not conscious of it, we don't know
what to do about it. So once people learn their
listening villains, they always say to me, it's tattooed on
my ain, I can never remove it, and then they
start the journey to become a conscious and deep listener.
One of the other things that we talked about briefly
(24:07):
being able to listen to the unsaid. I've seen that
quote from Peter Drucker in the past. Also, what exactly
does that mean though? Is that reading body language? What
does it mean to be able to pick up on
the unset as a listener? Yes, so this is the
ultimate ninja move of deep listeners. Listening to the unsaid
(24:29):
is listening to those eight hundred missing words that are
stuck in the speaker's mind. Dan, it's not about body language.
So Level one is listening to yourself. Level two is
listening to the content, which is both audio, video, visual
and your state. What's the energy the person is projecting.
Level three listening for the context they talk about the
(24:51):
past more or the present more do they talk about
themselves as individuals or in teams they talk about problems
or solutions. Have they given you the full backstory? The
four is listening for what's unset. When you can untap
what's unsaid, everybody begins to make more sense of what
happens when a lot of these common examples we've used down.
We're talking about this in the context of one on
(25:13):
one conversations in a group situation I was in. I
was doing a workshop in a technology company and they've
been enjoying fantastic plus growth over three years, and everything
had flattened out, and I was working with the leadership
team and they were all really energetic team and a
(25:35):
group of eleven men and one woman and her name
was Elaine. And we've gone around the room and done
a very simple exercise describe our company as an animal.
And it was about twenty minutes before lunch, and it
was one of those very dusty rooms, and everybody was
really keen to get to lunch. And we'd heard from
(25:55):
everybody describing an eagle and offspray, some kind of really
far s bird of prey that could maneuver really really
quickly and The last person who hadn't spoken was Elaine.
Now we were at noon by the time we've gone
around the room, and the CEO was kind of giving
me those evil villain laser eyes to kind of look at.
(26:15):
He was pointing to my watch, kind of going, let's
get to lunch. And I just gestured to Elane. I
didn't say anything, I didn't ask anything. I just put
my hand out to her to invite her into the conversation.
And she paused. And she was a card carrying member
of the introvert community. And they're the kind of people
that when you're at a conference and they say, hey,
(26:37):
if you're an extrovert, put your hand up, and they
put their hand up, and they probably clap or they
stand up, and if you're an introvert, put your hand up,
and they kind of she busually put your hand up.
Card carry member of the introvert community will never just
disclose that they're a member of that community. They will
never put their hand up. That's how quiet she was.
But what she said was I thought it was obvious
(26:59):
where a snake he could hurt a pin drop in
the room. Now, Dan, what's going through your head when
she says I thought we were a snake. What are
the characteristics of snake? Did you think about? But for me,
I think that's something that's maybe slimy, that it's kind
of devious, that's slithering. You know, when you think of
like somebody being a snake, that's not usually a good attribute.
(27:21):
They're dishonest, and that's what I think. The rest of
the room thought we could have stopped there, but I didn't.
I said, tell me more, and she said, well, I
thought it was obvious. What we've forgotten to do is
what snakes do. We forgot to shed our skin for
our customers. Why we've been successful is every season we
(27:43):
would shed our skin to something new and reimagined because
our customers needed that. And in our speed to be eagles,
we're forgotten to shed our skin. And the room kind
of exhaled, and all of a sudden it was a
completely different meaning to what a snake brings to the
commerce ation. Now we could have gone to lunch, and
I asked the room, is it true? And everybody kind
(28:05):
of went, yeah, alright, we've gotten about the agility we
had in early days. So one o'clock four twelve months later,
the organization has internal product code names around snake names.
They have little snake beanie toys. They include snakes in
the presentation. They talk about the importance of shedding their skin,
(28:28):
and that has many dimensions in their way. They talked.
They talked about staff not holding back issues in the business.
We need to shed our skin. This shedding of skin
can be completely different. Now, what happened as a result
of this. They created two new products because they went
back and listened to some customers, and as a result
(28:49):
of that, they started growing at a hundred percent rather
than thirty percent, which is what their aspiration was. But
the reality is, if we didn't listen to that voice
that wasn't heard in that meeting, none of that would
ever have taken place. So sometimes than listening to what's
on said is as simple as getting the opinion of
everybody in a meeting room. Nothing is more frustrating than
(29:10):
attending a meeting with six people and you only ever
hear from three. A skillful leader, a great facilitator, a
great manager will make sure that they hear from all voices.
They don't have to be an equal propulsion, but if
you hear from all voices, you'll hear what's unsaid, and
then you'll have an impact beyond words, as they did
in this case. Beautiful. You know you've illustrated a couple
(29:32):
of points here. A lot of times when we talk
about communication in the workplace, in romantic relationships and friendships
with family, it's usually in regards to what is being said.
But is it fair to say that perhaps listening is
(29:52):
an even more important skill than than being a great
or eloquent speaker. If you can imagine a world class
athlete preparing to train for four years for the Olympic marathon.
It's the last event, it's the premier event of the Olympics,
(30:13):
and we've all been taught how to speak, and we're
kind of like the coach at the beginning of four
years for an Olympic marathon. Imagine we said to the
Olympic Marathona, you're going to run all this next four years,
but you can only use your right leg. You can
only use one half of what you're capable of. You
(30:33):
would be an amazing runner. You would run in circles,
but you wouldn't be as fast as everybody else. Communication
is fifty speaking listening, and yet most people have by
the age of thirty done three training courses on how
to listen. By the age of forty, they've done ten,
(30:54):
and by the age of fifty they've done twenty and
actually accelerates the older you get. And yet by the
age of thirty, nobody's done any work on understanding what
good listening is. Here's three three of my funniest stats.
Stand of us think we're above average car drivers, eight
five percent of us think we're above average i Q
(31:17):
and of us think we're above average listeners. And it's
statistically impossible because only fifty of us should be above
average on any of those dimensions. But nobody ever taught
us what good looks like. None of us know how
to do that. So back to the point. The point
is this, if you're going to spend half your life
(31:38):
speaking and half your life listening, maybe the leadership hack,
maybe the communications hack of the one century, is simply
you learning to listen a little bit better, because more
speaking isn't going to get us. Shorter meetings isn't going
to get us. Projects that run on time isn't going
to get us relationships that are amazeing rather than frustrating.
(32:02):
So I like that Olympic runner who's practicing for the marathon.
I used both their legs, and the right leg of
communication is speaking, the left leg is listening. So let's
make sure we've got a balanced approach towards that. Anything
in corporate America that reduces phrases like hey, let's circle
(32:22):
back on that next week and talk about this more,
that is a positive skill and I am absolutely on
board with it. One last question for you, and I
would encourage people to check out your book, Deep Listening
Impact Beyond Words, And obviously you give a lot of
different examples and a lot of things here in the
book that can help people sharpen their skills. If maybe
(32:45):
there were three things that that the listener could implement
into their life today that is going to help them
not just listen to people, but truly hear them. What
would be the three most important tips that you would give?
Three tips aren't anything sophistomicated or complicated or really difficult.
(33:06):
Tip number one turn your phone to flight mode. Tip
number two drink water. So if you're going to be
in a conversation with someone, drink a glass of water.
And if you've just had a cup of coffee, drink
an extra glass of water. A hydrated brain is a
listening brain. And tip number three is really simple. Just
listen to your breathing. The deeper you breathe, the deeper
(33:30):
you listen. So right now, if you just take a
breath in through your nose, down into your diaphragm, and
then back up in and out through your mouth, if
you do three deep breaths like that, it's really simple.
I'll tell you how I integrated into my life, Dan.
When I walk into the lobby and I'm about to
see a client in a building, the minute I step
(33:51):
into the elevator, off my phone goes actually off, not
into flight mode, but there are some mobile phone addicts
out there, so flight motors is good as they can get.
My phone goes off, it goes into my bag. When
I go to reception, they often offer me tea or coffee.
Always ask for a glass of water and a glass
of water for those in the meeting. And then while
I'm sitting down and waiting, I just take three deep breaths.
(34:14):
That centers me, That gets me present, That gets all
the previous conversation out of my head and the next one.
There are many, many, many, many more tips. If you
download the five minutes of listening at listening dot com.
But those three tips address of the issues around distraction
that people struggle with when it comes to listening. Switch
(34:36):
your phone, I fly, no drink water, three deep breaths.
You'll become a much better listener. The more you're drinking
water and the more you're focused on your breath of
the less you're cutting other people off to. So I'm
sure that those those are game changers. Oscar, Thank you
so much for the time today. Where can people go
(34:57):
if they want to download the book, got to visit
listening myths dot com, or go and visit Amazon and
you can grab the book there as well. Oscar trim Bolie,
such a pleasure to talk to you. Hopefully you feel
listened to today and hopefully our listeners enjoyed listening to
the message. It's an important one. Thank you so much.
(35:19):
Thanks for listening. Dan really really enjoyed that interview of
Oscar is so passionate on the topic, and one of
the things that stood out to me upon going back
and listening again with the idea that deep listening starts
with listening to ourselves. You know, so often it's hard
for us to get our needs met at work and
(35:41):
at home because we're not really tuned into that internal GPS.
We're not in tune with our intuition, and sometimes we're
just reacting at the level of emotion without knowing what
it is that we really need and what the request
is that we're asking from the people in our lives.
And look, maybe you're a person who is this connected
from your own intuition. Maybe you're a person who doesn't
(36:03):
feel listened to by the people around you, but you
haven't been doing a good job listening to yourself. It's
keeping you trapped in a soul sucking job, keeping you
trapped in a toxic relationship. That's what my coaching programs
are designed to free you from. If you want to
create an amplified career in life you love, all you
have to do is fill out the application on my
website Creative Soul Coaching dot net. If you love the
(36:27):
interview this week, this podcast was meaningful for you, Please
be sure to share this with your coworkers, share it
with your spouse, your significant other, or just screenshot it
uploaded to Instagram or Twitter and let us know you're listening.
You can tag me at c sc Dan Mason, and
you can find Oscar at Oscar Trim Bolly t R,
I am b o L I Don't Forget. His book
(36:50):
Deep Listening Impact Beyond Words is on sale now at
listening myths dot com. Quick moment, I want to shout out.
Our listener of the week is Rita in CS. She
gave us five stars on Apple. She says, since I've
discovered your podcast, I've been listening to it NonStop on
my way to and from work, during my break times,
while cooking at home, and even before I go to sleep.
(37:12):
I've had countless aha moments while listening, taking notes and
writing down my own questions that I hope to find
answers to one day. Rita so happy to know that
the podcast is offering you value. And if you are
a person out there who's really enjoying what we share,
don't forget you can get in the running for that
brand new pair of Apple air Pods or an Amazon
(37:34):
gift card. It's your choice. Just leave us an honest
review up on Apple. The deadline coming up in two weeks.
I love you so much for listening. Thank you for
spending this time with me this week, and in the meantime,
turned down the volume on your negativity. Turn up the
volume on your purpose so you can live life amplified.
I'll talk to you next week.
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