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If you want better relationships, better leadership, or better results in your business, it comes down to one thing, and that is what we are talking about today. Welcome to the Upside podcast, where we help you get unstuck in life and business by elevating your thinking and provoking meaningful change from the inside out. I'm your host, Teresa Flood. And today we are talking about listening. Yes, we're talking about communication, but we're really going to be talking about the most important part of communication, which is our listening skills. And the reason that I chose to do this topic topic is because, frankly, I need to work on my own listening skills. And I'm really making a lot of strides to get more purposeful and more intentional on really becoming a great listener. And so I want to share with you seven frameworks and seven things that we can do to really become better listeners. And I'm working on implementing these in my own life as well. So here's what's interesting, is that communication, or experts say that communication is 45% listening. 45. That's almost half of communication has to do with listening. So it's not about talking, talking, presenting, persuading. It is about listening. And that's one of the skills that we work on the least. We take classes on how to be a better presenter, how to be a better speaker, conversation frameworks to use. When is the last time we've been to a class on how to be a great listener? So speaking is about 30% of our communication, reading about 16, writing about 9%. And so 45% is in our listening skills. Okay, so I want to give you seven things again, seven things that we can do to be better listeners. So the first one is stop listening to respond, and start listening to understand. And I think this is so key. I find myself when I'm interviewing guests here on the Upside, I find myself while they're talking. My mind is scrambling about what am I going to answer, ask next, what am I going to do to follow up? And sometimes because I'm so focused on what I'm going to ask next, I miss some of the gold that they're saying and really what we need to be diving into next. So stop listening to respond, start listening to understand. Most people really are just waiting for their turn to talk. They're not listening to the content of what somebody else is saying. They're just thinking about what am I going to say next? So challenge yourself to really understand. And one of the things that you can do to make this really applicable and practical is to to reflect back to somebody on what they just said. So what I'm hearing is this. Oh, wow. So that must have really been X, Y and Z. Just understanding and bringing clarity to a conversation so that we know that we've really understood what somebody is saying before we jump in and respond. The second thing is to stay in the moment longer than it feels natural. And this is about the power of the pause. You know, there's a lot of times in communication and conversation where we can allow silence to do the heavy lifting. Yep, that was a purposeful pause. I just let that sink in. See, it felt a little awkward, felt a little strange. Why is she not talking? Is there a glitch in the sound? No, that was a powerful pause. Right. Because it gives somebody time to think and it allows what we're saying or what somebody else is saying to. To resonate for just a second. So oftentimes we move on too quickly. But great listeners, they linger. They allow there to be a pause and they allow there to be silence. They let that silence do the heavy lifting. I know sometimes when I'm in maybe more tense conversations or emotional conversations, I want to jump in after somebody has spoke and almost let them off the hook in that moment, as opposed to just pausing for a second and just waiting. Because when we wait, oftentimes somebody will continue sharing if we just give them the space to do that. That's where people really start to open up. They start to say what they weren't gonna say initially, because guess what? When you pause, that also feels a little awkward to them. And so they're gonna jump in because they don't wanna have that awkward silence either. And they're gonna share more about what's on their heart when we give them the space for that to happen. Okay, so the third thing is to ask one more question than you normally would. Now, a few weeks ago, on the upside, I interviewed John Luke Spitler, and he is a organizational health leadership expert. And we talked about the power of being a story collector. And he talked about the number one skill of being a great listener is being a great question asker. And we can improve our ability to ask great questions. And so he challenged us to, instead of just asking one or two questions, what does it look like to go so deep and to ask 20 questions to when you get home from work and you're talking to your spouse, not just, how was your day? What did you do? What's up with the kids? But to really dig deep and to ask more questions, to really understand and get to the root of somebody. Things you could ask was, you know, somebody shares that, that something hard happened in their day, what made that hard? What was the worst part about that? Really dig deep. Sometimes just saying tell me more about that is a great follow up response to something so that you can really step back and understand somebody's heart. That's when you get real connection, asking somebody how they feel. You know, so many times we talk about facts, but when we really ask, how did that make you feel? You know, asking your kids, how did that make you feel? That's going to help open them up and they're going to get clarity and understanding as well. When we ask great questions, not only do we get understanding where somebody is coming from, but they also get more clarity understanding because it causes them to self reflect. So asking questions is such a powerful skill in being a great listener. All right, number four. Oh, this is a good one. Don't fix it, don't fix it. Feel it first. And I think this is very hard as a leader, as a parent, as a spouse. When somebody explains their problem to us or they tell us about what happened in their day, or they come to us about something, we immediately go into fixer mode. We have all the advice, we've been there before. We have the 10 point sermon of what they need to do to move to the other side. And oftentimes somebody just wants to be heard. They just want a safe place to express themselves. They want to feel understood. And we immediately jump into fixer mode and we shut them down. I have started asking my kids when they bring me a problem or bring me a scenario or something that happened at school or something that happened with a friend and I'll ask them, would do you want my advice on this or do you just want me to listen right now? And sometimes they'll say I, I just, I just kind of want you to listen and that's okay. And then sometimes they'll say no, no, I want to know what you have to say. And then you open the door for that permission for them to really be able to receive that advice. So number five, listen for what is not being said. So much of our communication is non verbal, right? So as listener people rarely say it directly. We have to read between the lines and by pausing, by asking follow up questions, not going into fixer mode, all of those things are going to allow us to listen for what is not being said. So pay attention to tone, to pauses, to hesitation. Just because somebody says I'm fine does not mean they are Fine. So that is your cue when the body language or the tone doesn't match the verbiage, to really lean in and use some of the other tools that we talked about. Okay, so number six is reflect emotion and not just words. So most people repeat facts, they don't repeat the feeling that somebody said. So for instance, oh, you've had a tough week. Oh, wow, that sounds really heavy. That must have felt really disappointing. And attach an emotion to what somebody is telling you that allows you to go deeper in your communication and to really listen to not just what is being said, but to what is being felt. And then this number seven, and this is a big one, is remove distractions and be fully present. I am so guilty of this. I am so guilty of having a conversation with somebody and my phone gets a text and I pick it up just to glance at it and oh, it's something that I'm going to need to deal with. And I all of a sudden go completely focused into my phone and tune out the person that I'm supposed to be having a one on one conversation with. As a matter of fact, Tommy laughs at me about this and Kirsty, who I work with at the office, laugh at me about it. And they're very, very gracious and generous to me. But it is a completely terrible flaw that I'm working to get better on. My Apple Watch goes off and I get distracted in that moment. Sometimes right in the middle of a conversation, well, how does that make the person on the other side of, of me feel? Not great, I can assure you. And so by removing distractions, putting the phone away, putting it in the other room, taking off the Apple watch, making sure that the music is turned off, that the TV's not on, that there's not something around us that's going to distract us so that we can really cue in on someone and listen. So if we want to be better communicators, which is going to make our relationship stronger, it's going to make our leadership better, it's going to make our business, our sales, everything so much better. We've got to become great communicators. And the number one thing is to become a great listener. So as always, join me in this journey of being a great listener. And thank you for listening to the Upside podcast. Please don't just listen, implement. Grab something that you heard today, put it into practice, maybe take a conversation where you would have fixed it and really ask that person, hey, do you want me to just listen or do you want my help? Take a conversation and take some reflective pauses. Don't jump in and start talking right away. Use some of these frameworks to help you in your journey of being a great communicator and a great listener. And as always, when you invest in your growth every single day, it is going to yield you great returns. Thank you so much for being an upsider and we'll see you next week.