EP 14 - 🧠✨Think You’re a Good Listener? Think Again! 3 Listening Blocks You Are Not Even Aware Of

Do you think you're a great listener? You may need to think again because there are 3 mental blocks that are preventing you to listen actively, consciously, and connect deeply with others. I'm going to show you how to overcome these mental blocks. I'm going to give you tools and strategies to turn you into an amazing, confident, and powerful listener. If you're ready, let's begin. Are you ready to shine? Come on, it's the shiny one. You got this. Welcome back, dear shiny minds, to the Shiny Minds Show. In today's topic, we are diving into the world of listening. I can tell you, for so many years teaching neuro-linguistic programming, coaching skills, leadership communication strategies, and then turning people into amazing, skillful, confident coaches, I can tell you with confidence that your number one human superpower is your listening skill. And perhaps you are thinking that you're a great listener because you know how to not interrupt, you know how to stay silent while people talk, You know how to respond, and you get to know, and you get to do some sort of connection. But is it all there is really about listening? Don't you think there is more? And don't you want to know more about how you can listen at another level? I'm going to invite you And I'm actually going to challenge you to look at your listening skills from a very objective perspective. And after sharing my mental blocks that I have been teaching from neuroscience, perhaps you're going to be realizing that you can be a way better listener. Perhaps you're going to realize that you haven't been listening to other people. You haven't been even listening to yourself because you don't know how. Perhaps you're gonna realize that you need to bust some assumptions about what you think about listening. Wherever you are with your listening skills, wherever you are with your career, if you want to become a better listener as a human, as a leader, as a business owner, as a friend, as a family member, it doesn't matter. This episode is gonna help you. Please stay and listen to the full episode to become a better listener. I'm going to define what active listening really is by integrating the International Coaching Federation's gold standard and how we are actually teaching coaching skills to world-class elite coaches. Active listening is not only paying attention to what people are telling you, but also paying attention to what they are not telling you, paying attention to their tonality, their body language, what is underneath the words, What are the fears? What are the emotions? What are the beliefs and values and expectations that they are not verbally telling you, but energetically they are sharing with you? If you're an active listener, you're going to realize the energy shifts. You're gonna realize the subtle moves that they make. You're gonna realize people have patterns in the way that they talk and they share information. In order for you to become a great listener, first you need to become aware of these 3 mental blocks that I was telling you about that you are not even aware of, so that you become aware of them and then you can overcome them. So number 1 mental block from neurolinguistic programming and neuroscience is that you have deletion process, which in neuroscience is called synaptic pruning. What synaptic pruning does is what you experience as your fish memory. You delete some of the information, and as a matter of fact, if you search, you're going to realize an average human being only retains 20% of the information that they receive. Yep, only 1/5 of the information, like whatever you say, people are not going to hear. So whatever you hear, you're not going to retain. Only 1/5 of it is going to remain. Why? Because we do have a capacity in our brain. In 1943, Dr. George Miller did a study about human brains and found out that we only have 7 plus or minus 2 bits of information that we can carry all the time. It's like fish memory. I mean, it is official that we have fish memory. You don't remember everything. You only remember what's important to you because of the reticular activating system that you have in your brain that just says, oh, okay, this is what is important. We're going to pay attention to this, and then we're going to delete whatever is not related to this because of the survival mechanics that we all have, that we are born with. It's all amygdala. It's the neuroscience. It's the survival system. But it is what's going on. And because you're not even aware of this, you don't realize this. Okay? So that's why I'm challenging you. Are you really a great listener? Do you know what you are really paying attention to? Do you realize what kind of information you retain, what kind of information you dismiss? In my Nourish Shine Technology coaching certification programs, I teach listening as a very high-conscious, high-executive-function-of-the-brain type of a skill because it is. You really need to pay attention to every single word that you are listening, because otherwise you're again, your reticular activating system is only going to focus on what matters to you and then dismiss the rest of it. And then you're gonna dismiss people's emotions, you're gonna dismiss the unspoken emotions, you're gonna dismiss their values, their beliefs, because You're not going to know how to dig deep. You're not going to know how to ask them powerful questions. And then you're not going to know what to do about it. You're just going to respond. Actually, most of the time, you're going to react. If you're not taking your time, like 3 to 5 seconds before you respond to any kind of conversation, any kind of information that You hear, that's reaction. If you have self-regulation, which is an emotional intelligence skill, you are going to stop or pause for 3 to 5 seconds to digest the information you received, to organize everything in a very meaningful manner in your neurons, and then you're going to turn back and respond and then ask and have a conversation around it. If you're not pausing, if you're not taking your time to digest the information, and if you are only like answering right away, that's reaction. Okay? It's almost automated. It's on autopilot. You don't even, you don't even take time to Think about it. You don't get your neurons involved in that process. So as a takeaway, what I want you to take and learn from this mental block of deletion and synaptic pruning is that you need to ask yourself, what am I deleting? What am I not processing? What am I dismissing? And what if that is so important for the person that I am communicating with? Because I am pretty sure you experienced one of those moments where you felt unheard, where you felt you didn't feel like they were listening to you. Like they're telling you, yeah, I'm listening. Yeah, they're quiet. They're just like minding their own business. And then It looks like, you know, they have their ear with you, and then you talk, you talk, you talk, but then there's no interaction. There's no depth. There is no feeling understood. Do you know what I'm talking about? I know I'm not the only one, Shiny Minds. We all have these moments, right? Hey, just make me feel heard and seen and understood, you know? Make me feel that I am here, that you get me. Do we have this with everybody? No, it happens super rare. And that's why coaching is a super important profession, because coaches are trained to deeply listen and then hear what is not even said. They get to hear it energetically. With my Nourishine technology, we go deeper into the energy, the vibration, and we call those Nourishine moments the aha moments, the moments of truth. When somebody feels heard, when somebody feels understood, when there is a deep connection over there, they tap into the Nourishine moments of truth, and then boom, you create transformation. Because in in those neuroshine moments of truth, people become aware of who they really are. They tap into their own truth within. And so going back to the mental block of volition and synaptic pruning, what you want to take away again is ask yourself, objectively look and investigate yourself. Am I a great listener? What am I dismissing? What am I focusing on? Am I avoiding heavy emotions? Am I avoiding some very strong words? Am I avoiding tasks? When you become objective about the way that you listen to others, only then you can invite them to listen to you at that same level. Okay, so that's in the pocket. Now let's talk about the second mental block that is blocking you to listen actively and connect deeply with others that you're not even aware of, which is distortion. Distortion, again, is another mental mechanic that goes on in your brain in your neurons and you are not even aware because nobody told you so. Okay, we are born with this what I call 3D matrix brain, and with this brain, our neurons are consistently creating neural pathways to make us survive. Survival of our ego, is number one. Survival of our physicality is number one. So when physicality and ego are intertwined, then distortion happens because of that. Because our brain is so old, millions of years old, our brain cannot understand the difference between, oh, a big bear is chasing you, run, you need to survive, and, oh, there is actually some feedback that you need to hear so that you can improve yourself. If they are in the same category, of course you're going to avoid the feedback. Of course you're going to avoid the pain. Of course you're going to procrastinate. Why? Because your old reptilian brain is actually looking at that the same way it is looking at the pain of a bear chasing you, a tiger chasing you in the old reptilian times. So because of this old brain that we have, we are programmed to go in this automated loop of, oh my God, let me avoid the pain, let me just like avoid the, the bear chasing me, the feedback and the critics that I am going to hear, which is going to hurt. Like, you avoid that. And that is again a very, very old reptilian brain function, my dear shiny mice. If you're in that situation, may I please challenge you? Let that go. It's okay to listen to the feedback. It is actually more than okay. Let's normalize it. I understand most of the people, they don't know how to give constructive feedback. They don't know how to boost your confidence as they share feedback with you. They actually put you down. They actually make you feel worse about yourself, and that's why you avoid it, and that is the cause of the pain. I totally understand. And at the same time, I promise you it's not going to kill you. I promise you it's not the same as a bear or a tiger chasing you. I promise you that. This is an old programming. This is an autopilot. You need to break free of that. You need to become aware that this is the conditioned distortion of the human brain, the 3D matrix brain, and that is affecting you and it is holding you back from listening to other people and connecting deeply, not only with other people, but with yourself. You're not even listening to yourself because you're also avoiding your own emotions. You might be avoiding the pains that you are feeling inside. So that's where it all begins. And the tool to overcome this mental block of distortion And how to overcome that is, again, awareness. Number 1, become aware. Oh my goodness, Shiny Unsal AI, did I distort this? Like, I'm gonna give you a very simple question to ask yourself to become aware of the distortions that you make. Are you ready? Here it comes. Very simple. You're just going to ask, "Is that true?" That's it. Hey, you are listening to the creator of Neuroshine technology, technology for truth. So of course we're going to start with that. Of course we're going to ask, "Is that the truth? Is that the complete truth? Am I distorting it? What is the real truth behind it?" What is the reality? What is the truth that is hard to admit? What am I avoiding? What am I distorting? What am I choosing to be true, but I know deep down that it is a story? It's a distorted story of the mind because of the survival mechanics that I am conditioned with. It is the survival of the ego. If I really become truthful, and if I am brutally honest with you, the truth is I am avoiding to listen to the feedback because it reminds me of how much I need to grow, how much I need to improve, and how much more potential that I have to become a better version of myself. Am I avoiding that because it is painful for me to be reminded of my true potential? I can see my potential, and I am not that potential. And because I am not that potential, it hurts for me to hear that I am not my potential. This is the reality. All right, my shiny minds, I hope this is sinking in. I hope you're gonna take away, is that the complete truth? What is so hard to admit? Questions. You're gonna put these questions into your pocket, and then we're gonna move on to the third mental block that you are not even aware, which is preventing you to listen better, listen actively, and then connect deeply with others. Which is assumptions. Mm-hmm. As you may have heard from me before, your brain is a meaning-making machine, and meaning is actually defined in our everyday conversations that we share with each other. Your meaning is your assumption. Okay? That's how it is defined. My meaning is my own assumption. I'm assuming I'm— because we are not scientific in the way that we talk. We can never be scientific. We can only make assumptions, right? Think about it. Like, if a giraffe is looking at a picture that you look at, Okay, picture that with me. There is a lady with a big hat that she's wearing. Okay, you're looking at that lady, and then you're seeing the lady as she is, and then she's wearing a big hat. But then a very tall giraffe is so tall and looking at the same lady, but the giraffe is actually bending over the lady to look at her, and then the only thing that the giraffe sees is the hat. And the hat actually is kind of hiding the lady inside. Can you picture that in your mind? I bet, I bet you do, right? So is the giraffe lying? No. Are you lying about what you see? No, those are just two different perspectives. And these are called assumptions. The giraffe is assuming that there is only a big hat, and that's what, what it sees, right? And then you're like, you can swear, no, it's not. Like, what are you talking about? It's not because it's your perspective. And this is exactly what happens in our everyday conversations. You can literally swear that they are wrong, but actually they are not because from their perspective, this is exactly how it looks. I hope I made my point, and I hope you understand that assumptions are not there to lie to each other. Assumptions are there because of our neural mechanics. It's our internal mental mechanics. That's how the brain works, period. That's it. All you need to know is, hey, I understand now my brain is making assumptions, therefore I need to become aware. And for that, my biggest tool that I can share with you is, what am I assuming? What am I strongly believing to be true, and how am I making others wrong? If you're making others wrong, you're not listening. If you're telling them, no, that's, that's not what it is, you don't know what you're talking about, well, you just wronged them. And that's not great listening, my dear shiny minds. Okay? That's not great listening. Great listeners are conscious listeners. If you're conscious, you're gonna tap into All these powerful tools that I shared with you, all the deletion, distortion, and assumption that your brain makes, you're going to become aware. You're going to bust those with the questions that I shared with you. You're going to observe yourself while you are communicating with others and while you are in your head. Okay? And while you are thinking about reacting to others, you're gonna catch yourself. You're gonna ask, what am I dismissing? You're gonna ask yourself, is that the complete truth? What is hard to admit? And then you're gonna ask, what am I assuming? Am I making others wrong? If the answer is yes, then you're not a great, great listener. Uh, let me share it again. Then you're not a great listener yet. but you're about to be. You're just going to become aware and willing, and with our NeuroShine Technology Formula for Change, let me remind that again, change equals awareness multiplied by willingness. You're gonna use that and you're going to improve your listening skills and you're going to turn them into your superpowers, my dear shiny minds. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope you decided to become an amazing listener. If If you did, please put a like on this video. Please share it. Please subscribe to my channel. I would love you to subscribe. I would love you to become a part of our world, to become a shiny mind so that we can make this world a better place together. So before you go, I wanna share one question video. So that you can think about it and then you can share your answers in the comments below. By looking at all the 3 mental blocks that I shared with you in this episode, which one do you think you need to improve? And then how exactly you're going to improve it? Please share it in the comments below. And if you would love to go deeper with your listening skills, with your communication skills, perhaps If you want to turn yourself into an amazing, powerful coach and build a coaching business, come join us at the Academy of Neuroshining Technology. Go to my website, shinyunsal.com, and then download the free PDF guide for you to become a powerful coach. I am sharing my 3-step guide with you so that you understand what is coaching, how you can become a coach, and Why do you need to become a coach? So that is what I am leaving you with. And I also want to encourage you to tap into the great listener within you so that we can make this world a better place together with more love and shiny minds. Thank you for letting my light into your neurons. Until next time, keep shining, dear shiny minds.