05: Just Listen! The Secret to Getting Through to Just About Anyone

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply. That is a quote from famed author and motivational speaker Stephen Covey. I know. I agree with that statement, and I'm sure many of you listening do as well. Of all of the communication skills that we use in our personal and professional lives, listening is the most underrated, but arguably one of the most valuable. Anyone and everyone can benefit if they just listen more. Listening to our clients, our supervisors, our co workers, our kids, our parents, our spouses. Listening can help solve a lot of problems. And people can find solutions if they just listen to one another. Are you still listening? Good, because there is another payout to listening that most people don't know about. And here's the secret. Listening can help you change anyone's mind or outlook. How? Keep listening. The reason why I selected this listening episode as one of my first episodes in the podcast is because I think the lack of it causes a lot of problems in our relationships. Think about situations at work or in your community, at home or with clients or customers. How would listening to a problem, instead of explaining your side of the problem, help solve the problem? And here's another reason I use the techniques from this book during a particularly snarky exchange with my 16 year old daughter. More on that later. But the book that I'm highlighting is Just Listen by Mark Goldston and the subtitle is Discover the Secret to Getting through to Absolutely Anyone. It is a valuable book if you are trying to reach someone and you suspect that the lack of listening has something to do with it. Now on this solo podcast, I want to talk about this book because listening resonates in so many different areas. There are people that you want to reach, but you can't reach them for whatever reason. Golson suggests that we look at the relationships as a hostage situation. Yes, you heard that right, a hostage situation. And if you're a parent of a teenager, you know exactly what I mean. And here's the reason why. Because you are trapped by another person's resistance or fear or anger, hostility, stubbornness, whatever it is, you're stuck. And the way to get unstuck is to listen. That's where the listening triggers come in. I'm going to summarize the methods that he outlines in the book to get people to move from a no to a yes. So the person is the hostage and they do not want to speak with you. But you, the negotiator, your job is to keep them talking. And that's what this episode is going to be about, as I said in the beginning, most of us don't listen very well. And if we do manage to listen, we are often just waiting until the other person finishes so that we can say what is on our mind. And that's not really listening. Now, Golson, he's a former UCLA psychology professor, a former trainer for the FBI and police hostage negotiator. So he really is an expert in human behavior and how to get into somebody's head. What I want to focus on today are his nine core rules for getting through to anyone. And some of these techniques can help you get buy in from the person you're communicating with. Because if you can't get buy in, you can't sell anything. You can't persuade them of anything. You get stuck. So parents, coworkers, colleagues, salespeople, consultants, entrepreneurs, parents of snarky teenagers, if you just listen to this podcast, I promise you, you are gonna walk away with actionable steps that will get people to listen to you. At the open of one of his chapters, he uses the term hot sinking to help in the efforts of communication. And it made me laugh because hot sinking is such an antiquated term. You only think of hot sinking when you think of a or a Palm Pilot. So if you're a Gen Xer or above, you certainly have heard that term before and you probably haven't heard it in years. But his term for hot sync is hot syncing with other people. Like, how can we connect with them so we're both reading and transmitting the same information. So he illustrates these nine core rules for getting through to anyone. Rule number one of the nine core rules for getting through to anyone is the move yourself from oh fudge to okay, now you know what I mean when I say oh fudge. So think back to the movie A Christmas Story. So O fudge to okay, that's releasing the stress in your life, that O fudge moment, and accepting things for how they are. Now, if you start with O fudge, that is a disaster. Okay, that's the reaction phase. Like, oh, this is a mess. I don't know what to do. The next stage is oh my gosh, oh my gosh, this is such a mess. To oh geez, I think I can fix this. And in Minnesota we would say, oh geez, oh yeah, I know I can fix this. Next is, oh, well, what's the worst thing that could happen to okay, I'm ready to fix this. There is a power in starting at the oh fudge and bringing it to the okay because it's going to drive you towards a resolution. And here's something that's interesting. If you say it out loud, it's going to help you get from oh, fudge to okay a lot quicker than if you just think it. So if you're in your car or you're alone, you can yell your oh, fudge as loud as you want because it's telling your brain that you're going to start working towards a solution. You get through to yourself first by just getting your emotions out. Oh, fudge to under control. This helps you and prevents you from being your own worst enemy. Okay, now the most important rule here in this first step, you have to think like if you're on a flight, when a flight attendant tells you to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you put it on your children, is you have to take care of yourself first. So if you are in crisis mode with someone, you're fighting, you're arguing, you do not see eye to eye. You have to think about yourself first, okay? And you have to put yourself into check. This is a really, really important step because it's okay to acknowledge that things are really, really bad at first. Say it out loud and then you're going to start working through. Now here's an action step. Think back to one of your worst encounters that you've had in the past year when you, with a colleague or a loved one, mentally walk through that oh, fudge moment to the okay moment as if you were reliving the incident. Now, try the same technique with the same person, but follow the steps of the process. So it has to be someone that you see fairly regularly, on a regular basis, or if you're arguing with them, or if you're having problems with them. But see if you can compare and contrast the first time that you dealt with them and then the second time as you moved it through the filter. Step number two, rewire yourself to listen. Do you do this? I know this is something that I recently do, especially with my kids. I open my mind and I try and put away that first impression or that first gut reaction to what I want to say, okay? So whatever that first impression is, it's one that can prejudice the rest of the conversation. And I know what you're saying to yourself, like, oh, I never do that. I always listen to people. But you know what? We all do this. So gut check. Think about a time where you've had a problem with a family member, a friend, a spouse, a colleague. What was your role in it? Were you listening Chances are you weren't okay. But if you stop and now rewire yourself and to be a listener, you are going to notice a lot of changes. And I have definitely done this, especially since I've read this book. Think about it with your customer. Do you listen to their problem, or are you waiting for them to finish the complaint so you can get through the interaction and get it over with as soon as possible? Parents, do you respond to your child's complaint with an option or solution, or do you just listen now? Next, gut check. Think about a disagreement. Think about a conversation that you didn't like. Did you run that person through a filter? And this is especially important if you own a business and you're dealing with customers. The filters that we all use, gender, the age, and perhaps there's a gap in the age, the different generations, the nationality or ethnicity of a person, person, the education level of a person, the emotion of the person. We all filter interactions through all of those different categories. Now think about how that's going to affect the conversation and the communication between the two of you. These filters may be keeping you from listening to and reaching that other person. So the second step is to rewire yourself to be a listener. Stop using your brain, stop trying to come up with an answer or defend something and listen to what they're saying. And are you applying filters to that person? Are you applying a filter based on their gender, their age, their background, their education, their ethnicity? If you are gut check time, stop that and really listen to what they are saying. The third rule, make the other person feel felt. Let me explain what that means. Let the other person know that you want to know how they feel. In a lot of my trainings that I hold at companies or when I travel and speak to a room, I often talk about the wifm, the W, I, I, F, M, and WI Them stands for what's in it for Me. And that is another way of putting yourself in someone else's shoes. That is such a powerful technique when you really have to get to the root of a problem. And when you do that, you're not just listening to the words, you're trying to figure out how they're feeling at the moment. Now, I mentioned that I had used some of the techniques in this book with my daughter. So here's the point in the episode where I will share that story. Now, My daughter is 16, almost 17. She plays three sports in school. She plays soccer and hockey and lacrosse. And during her soccer and hockey season, she was injured and she had stress fractures in her legs, which would make sense because I just said that she plays soccer and hockey at the same time in the fall. But she had these injuries, and she was incredibly frustrated. And I knew that she was frustrated. But many parents see this type of frustration present itself as moody, snarky, just ambivalent behavior towards the parents. It's never fun. But we were in a doctor's office, the orthopedic surgeon's office, and she was in a mood amood, and she was annoyed. I was annoyed. And she just sat there on her phone, and I was trying to talk to her about what was happening, and she just did not want to hear me, and she did not want to talk. Now, I knew that some of that stress that she had was she's in the process of trying to figure out which school that she wants to go to. Recruiting is starting to come up, and she needs to reach out to coaches, and she's injured, and it's causing a lot of stress. And I understood this, but she was still throwing every objection that she possibly could my way. And what I wanted to do as a parent was just walk out the door. I was so annoyed at that point, but I knew I couldn't. And I knew what she was dealing with. I just couldn't pinpoint it. Why? What I did is use the steps in this book to walk her through. And, man, it was effective, and I know it because there was a woman sitting next to me in the next bank of chairs, and she was a parent of a teenager as well. I could tell that she was stopping what she was doing just to listen to me have this conversation with my daughter. So these are some of the steps that I used, and I'm going to illustrate it through what I had said to my daughter. Now, one, I knew that she was upset and she was frustrated and she was really sad. So I started asking her a series of questions that I learned from the book. One was, you know, the first was this. I'm trying to get a sense of what you're feeling. And Rory, that's her name, I think it's. It's fear because you don't know how this is going to affect college recruiting. I think it's sadness because you're missing your junior year soccer season, and this is such a fun season for you. And also you're worried that you're going to go into that doctor's office and he's going to tell you that you can't play for another six weeks. The next step is to ask how upset, worried Et cetera, are you. And then she started speaking. I would have bet the world right there and then she would not have said a word. But she immediately started telling me what the problem was, and it was everything that I had just stated. She was worried and she was scared, and she was really, really sad because she couldn't play soccer. So then the next step is you have to repeat what you heard. So I said, okay, so I hear what you're saying, Rory, but it really sounds like the reason is because you're so sad that you missed that camaraderie with your friends and you had a chance to have an amazing soccer season and you lost out on it. And she said, yes. Now, the next step is this. You say, what part can I play in helping you make this better? Now, note the language. I didn't say, how can I help? Because I think that's a term, that's a trigger term, especially for kids and teenagers, because all moms say it. How can I help? What can I do? And when they hear that, they immediately turn you out. But telling them, what part can I play? It means that you're in it with them and you're both, you know, equal in working towards the same goal. So the script isn't in stone, but it does work because that woman, she stopped what she was doing. I could tell, so she could listen word for word. And it worked. So that is a great action step if you want to try it. Now, the next rule. Be more interested than interesting. When you are interesting, you spend too much time talking and not enough time asking questions to learn more about the other person. Now, this is a golden rule, and I did talk about it in episode four when I talked about how to carry on a good conversation or how to be a good conversationalist. People will become more intrigued by you and with you if you are more interested in them. Now, you cannot fake sincerity. You know it is real. If you ask questions that elicit feeling answers, you will start a conversation and you will be able to hear what is troubling the other person. Here's an example. If you were to ask a fellow entrepreneur at an event, what is the best part of your business? You are going to get an answer such as, I love to help people do X, Y and Z, or, I've always been drawn to numbers and math. Whatever it is, you're going to get more of a conversation. You're not going to get the yes and the no. Now, you don't want to think of the conversation like a tennis match, like you're just going to volley comments back and forth and back and forth. You want to create a pattern where you are asking a question, but again that you're getting a real response. And when the other person knows that you're listening and you're listening in the follow up question, you are going to get more information. So here's an action step for this one. Identify the dullest person that you know and make it your mission to discover something fascinating about them. Now, don't ask them, why are you so dull? That's not a good answer. Draw it out of them by asking them a question that you think they would find interesting and see how it works. Now the next rule is one that you already know works. People want to feel valuable, so make people feel valuable. People need to know that they matter. So this is different than making them feel interested or interesting. Like I mentioned in the previous rule, making someone feel that they are an important cog in the machine is going to help you get to the bottom of a problem. And it's also a golden moment to get people to do something for you. If you need them to change or do something, tell them how valuable they are to your system or the process or your life. And then tack on the ask and tie it into a value statement. For example, if a client is complaining to you about X, Y and Z and they want you to fix it, find the value piece of the puzzle that they have to contribute to to solve the problem. Or if there's a problem person at work who is always complaining, we've all had that person, what you can say to them is this. What you are saying is so important that I'd like you to take responsibility for coming up with a solution. So when you have an idea, tell me what it is and we can go over it together. I really appreciate your help. Boom. That's going to work and you are going to be able to solve the problem. Next rule is helping people exhale emotionally and mentally. All right, you don't want to add to it. And this is where silence truly helps. Everyone likes a good vent session from time to time. And if necessary, you know, allow someone else to vent to you when they can, when you have the time to do it. Because it is true. Some people just want to vent and get things off their chest. And when you get something off your chest, you're freeing up space in your mind. A term that I always use is renting space in your head. If you vent it out, it's not going to be there anymore. When you're speaking with someone else. You can move them away from distress by telling them to literally exhale. That will help them to exhale figuratively. It also helps build a bridge for you to communicate across it. When you tell someone that you're there to listen to them and really listen to the vent, you are going to see the. The anger and the stress diffuse right before your eyes. All right? Now, don't take issue with what they're saying. Don't defend yourself if it's coming at you or explain the situation. Just let them vent. Now here's the trick. Once they vented, and once they're finished venting and you see the physical stress, release their body. Ask them, tell me more. Ask them to go back to the Venture. Why do you want to do this? It disarms them. It shows them that you're listening. And when you don't take issue with anything that they say, it lets go of all the stress. But if you come back and ask for more and they have nothing, it's done. You're finished. So there's your action step. Now, another step that you can try is try it with a teenager. You can try it with your own teenager or another teenager. Maybe you have a niece or a nephew or you're a teacher or a guidance counselor. Here are the steps that you can use with them. 1. Ask them what is the most frustrated they have ever felt about school or their mom or their dad or you? And then ask them, well, how bad is it for you? Like, tell me what it's like. At its worst, what did it make you want to do? Tell me. Let them tell you. Now ask what did you do? And let them tell you some more. The trick is to keep them talking. And when they're finished with the story and you see them decompress and you know that they're calm, you simply say, I'm sorry, and you mean it. That is the act of exhaling. The next rule is checking your dissonance at the door. Now, this rule is about how we perceive others and how we perceive ourselves and how there is sometimes a disconnect in how we see ourselves and other people. For example, you might think you're a shrewd person. Another person may think that you're sly. You may think that you're confident. Another person might think that you're arrogant. You are as funny as all get out. Another person might find you inappropriate. You could be super energetic. The other person might think that you are incredibly hyper. You see yourself as strong. Someone else may see you as rigid. You may be quiet and reserved and shy. Someone else may see that as rude and dismissive. If you think that you're a sensitive person, another person may think you're needy. So here's a question for you. How do people see you now? If you have it in you, if you have the heart and you really want to get to the bottom of this one, ask trusted friends or relatives or co workers how you come across in specific situations so you can adjust your reactions if necessary. Now do this if you have the guts and ask them, how do you see me? Or you can diffuse it a little and ask them, how do you think other people see me? If you own a small business, you might ask your manager or one of your employees, how do you think our customers view me? Now, there are different levels of corporate dissonance as well. A CEO or a president, chairman of the board. You know, someone who is leading a company or leading a board may feel one way about that organization, but the employees or the customers, they may feel another way. So here is an action step in the professional setting. If you think that your customer is sees you one way or you're noticing that you're in some type of paracrisis or crisis mode, like your business is starting to deal with something, maybe there's some friction online that you're starting to read customers are complaining on Facebook, or maybe something happened against your business and you're starting to hear about it through the grapevine, or you're hearing it or seeing it on social media. What you can do in terms of messaging, and this is straight out of one of my playbooks for helping my clients with, you know, dealing with media relations or crisis counseling or public relations is you can come at it the same way you'd come at it personally. And here's how you could do it. You could be the owner of a business and you could say this on Facebook, for example. If your company is dealing with something, I think you, the customer, feels this way about us. And it could be you think we're raising our prices or we're not loyal, whatever it is. So I want you to know that we are not feeling that way or we are not doing this. I understand why you may think this as a customer, but I want you to know that we're not. But I feel where the disconnect is and I want to change that. You're kind of replacing this mutual dissonance with mutual respect. In other words, you're just identifying what the issue is and you're telling your customer, you know what that issue is, you are going to fix it. Now, how can you do that personally? The next time you feel yourself sliding into an argument, you can say to the person, hey, I think you're attacking me. And I'm guessing that you feel that I'm attacking you. But in reality, I think we are both defending ourselves. So I want you to know that I don't want to hurt you. All right? And let it go from there. That's your next step to listening and getting to the bottom of a problem that will help you get through to anyone. Next rule. When all seems lost, you bury your neck. Okay, so what does that mean? So instead of lashing back when you feel backed into a corner, if you show a little vulnerability, you might be able to break through that tension. Now, vulnerability isn't necessarily a weakness. You're showing a sign of strength and resilience. If you can show some of your vulnerabilities, if you are in some type of distress or anger, don't hide that you're not. And that's gritting through your teeth saying, I'm not angry. You can share how you're feeling. You can share the vulnerability. You can share a mistake that was made that is powerful. So the action step here is the next time that you want to bare your teeth and you want to do this to a colleague or a customer, a teenager, your spouse, whatever it is, just reach deeper and bare your neck. Instead, bear your true feelings. That will get you to the heart of the problem a lot quicker. The next rule and our final rule, steer clear of toxic people. Now, it's okay to say no to people who make you feel less than or people who hurt you. You do not need toxic people in your life. You do not need toxic clients in your life. You do not need a toxic customer in your life. Because you know, especially you know, entrepreneurs, small business owners, consultants, when you take on a client and you're miserable, the second you do it, it will never, ever be a positive experience for you. And chances are it won't be for your. For your client either. Now, how we can take this step to more personal. Is the bully. Now, this is advice that you can give to a child that's dealing with a bully, a person that's dealing with a bully at work, or you are dealing with a bully. Now, bullies are bullies because the person they're bullying, they consider to be easy prey. Now, think about that in a work sense. Think about that in a relationship sense. Are you being bullied if you are, it's because you're an easy mark and you want to change that. And here's how you can do that. The first thing you can do is you make eye contact. Strong people make eye contact. Weak people look away. You look your bully in the eye. You act polite. But here's the trick. You act a little bored, like your mind is elsewhere. And then you let your body language transmit the same message. So picture this. I know this is a podcast and you can't see me, but someone is coming at you. You can cock your head to the side and put your eyes in the air like you're thinking something else and then kind of come back to that conversation. Excuse me, could you repeat what you just said? Talk about deflating a situation and defusing a situation. It's really, really effective. And I have to admit now I use this in a business setting. Now, it wasn't someone that was particularly bullying me, but it was someone that was having a really. And they were dealing with something else within their business that had nothing to do with me. But I knew as it was rolling downhill, it was hitting me. And I did a little spin off of this same tactic. I didn't take it personally. I didn't go into a silent mode. I didn't become defensive. I became slightly disinterested in their problem. Because here's something that I live by and anyone that knows me well knows this. I say this all the time, don't let your emergency be my emergency. Okay? That's what I'm thinking to clients, like if they're having a problem and it's because of something that they did wrong, but they don't want to admit it and they're putting it on me. That's making their emergency my emergency. And as someone that worked for FEMA for a number of years, I know emergency management. If they admit from the get go I'm in an emergency and I need help, then I'll be the first person to do that. But if somehow I'm the blame of it or they're taking it out on me, I'm not going to stand for that. So this is just another spin on that quote, unquote bully tactic. And it does work. So it works for the true bully in life. So if you want to share this piece with your kids, it would be helpful. But it also helps to the adult. It helps you react to an adult bully in your life, but it also helps you react to the bully situation that you're in where someone is trying to Be a little more powerful than they need to be. Okay, so those are the nine rules to help you get through to absolutely anyone. Now, if you noticed, I didn't use the word listen a lot because it's easy to tell someone, just listen. But listening is just a word if you don't know how to use it. All of these rules, these nine rules that I gave you, are rules to help you appear that you are listening more to the other person. But there are also rules that help you listen more to the person and the situation that you're in and what you could also tell. It's a way to diffuse the situation that you're in because that's how you can listen. You're cutting through all the tension. You're cutting through the muck and the mire of the problem. I hope you were able to learn a lesson or two or some of the action steps that you can use in your messaging and any of the work that you're doing with clients or with customers or any of the conversations that you're having at home. Now, not every strategy will work in every situation. You have to play around with them, but test them out and see which feel best for you. We can all benefit from spending a bit more time listening and a bit more time thinking about how we're going to respond or react to someone we don't agree with. Now, I want to hear if you use any of these strategies. Now, if you were listening, I told you, I use strategies pulled directly from this book and they worked. So before I let you go, the book again is called Just Listen by Mark. Discover the Secret to Getting through to Absolutely anyone. It's great for parents, it's great for partners, it's great for business people. Anyone that needs to get through an unstuck situation. And before I let you go, I want to thank you for listening to today's episode. And if you want to hear more, I encourage you to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks for listening. Until next time.