This week we dive into listening skills because most people have crappy listening skills, and YOU can make a huge impact by being an expert listener. Good listening skills makes socializing so much easier because it gives you everything you need to guide a conversation and to make the other person at ease when opening up to you. We talk about active listening skills and being present, and also some great tips to help you along the way.
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Thank you!! - Nathan. : D
This week we dive into listening skills because most people have crappy listening skills, and YOU can make a huge impact by being an expert listener. Good listening skills makes socializing so much easier because it gives you everything you need to guide a conversation and to make the other person at ease when opening up to you. We talk about active listening skills and being present, and also some great tips to help you along the way.
Help buy my beer ; D
https://www.patreon.com/TSSLpodcast
paypal.me/TSSLpodcast
Thank you!! - Nathan. : D
And welcome back to episode number four of the social skills lab. I'm your host, Nathan Ament. This is where we talk about improving your social skills. So you could be a more social person. So you can expand and grow your social circle and develop a fun social life. Last week, we talked about where to meet new people and what, what to talk about. I shared how I, when I was starting out, I was really into the music scene. And that's how I became more social. So I guess it also gave some ideas of other ways to go out and be more social, some places to go, things to check out. Well, since I was into the music scene, that might not necessarily be your bag, but I'd say at least try it out. Or if you don't want to do that, just figure out some other way. Basically, the reason why the social scene the music scene was so good was because I kept running into the same people over and over again, because it was a pretty small scene. And that just lends itself to being, you know, making better connections with people. So any way you can engineer that concept of going to a place where you where you would might, or you might run into the same people do that someday. So like take up a class or joining us some type of club, I don't know, just any way you can figure out to run into the same people over and over and over and over again, that would be probably pretty helpful, because it just makes it easier to make a stronger connection with someone than just randomly run into a person one off, which does work, you can do it. But I don't know, maybe you even take a part time job somewhere. A lot of people make friends at work. Another good idea for a job is to get a job where you have to socialize. One of the two, I had a job. Back when I was like 2122, I worked at a call center. And I think that's probably where I first started getting forced to socialize a lot more, I had to take all these just take phone calls all day, incoming phone calls, people trying to redeem their points of their credit cards and stuff like that for like gift cards and stuff like that. And I was just forced to be on the phone and chat with people all day long. I heard like even getting a job like as a bartender or a greeter somewhere that can help a lot. And anything you could do to force yourself if you're not, if you know you're not going to do it, but you want to do it, maybe just find a way to force yourself into some type of position where you're going to have to socialize more. That's not a bad idea. Okay, so we also talked about what to talk about. So on that one, I just basically said, to expand your interests, as much as possible. Learn about all kinds of different things, try new things, take up a hobby, take up several hobbies, because you'll make connections between things, subconsciously, and it'll help you talk about interesting things to people. I know, myself, I took up, I got interested in art. So I took up oil painting. I took it at the community college, but first I had to take up drawing before I did that. So I don't know, I just got into art for the last 10 years. And then after a while of going to I really like going to museums. And after a while it's like, you know, like what they say is like, Oh, I could do that sounds like yeah, I could do that. Well, I could do something like that at least I take that up and then I've been doing some oil painting in the garage. Some stuffs turning out pretty cool. But last weekend, I was at a friend's house. And I noticed that there's a couple of us over there. And I was talking to this girl. She had some paintings up on the wall. And I asked her I was like, oh, did you do those? She's like, yeah, yeah, I was like, Oh, those look like acrylic. And she's like, yeah, and she knows that I've been painting as well, but I didn't really realize that she had been painting So we started just talking about painting. And I do mostly oil painting, I have done some acrylics, but I mostly do oil. So I was asking her a lot of questions about how she does the acrylics. And the only difference is those are water based versus oil based painting. So we don't know, we ended up talking about our for like, 20 or 30 minutes. So it's just a pretty good example, I think of, you know, when you expand your interests, you can relate to people on those interests and stuff like that a lot. It just happens. It happens all the time. So this week, we're going to be talking about listening skills, and being present. If you, I think if you asked 100 people, if they are good listeners 100, people would tell you, Yes, they are. And I think that's part of the problem. Because I would say in my personal experience, I very rarely meet someone who's a good listener, it's maybe one out of 10 people, if that I find that are actually like really good listeners. It's such an important skill, though, too. Because if you think about it, when you're when two people are talking, or if you know, you're in a group of like three people that are having a conversation, you're gonna have, you're going to have one person talking, like, theoretically, you're gonna have one person talking, one person listening, or you're gonna have one person talking, and two people listening. So it's one or the other. So if you're going to be talking, then you know, do your best to be interesting. If you're going to be listening, do your best to be a good listener, it just makes a conversation flow so much better when both people are playing their parts. The other thing about really good listening skills, and listening is a skill. So just think of it that way. It's a skill that needs to be honed, and improved as much as possible, if you want to be if you want to improve your social skills, you're gonna have to improve your listening skills. The nice thing about improving your listening skills is that it makes socializing something like 100% easier. And this is why if I start talking to someone, and I tap into something that they like talking about, I'm almost pretty much done for like 10 minutes. You can have someone you can ask the right question to someone. And if you start just listening Well, if they they know you're like interested, like good listening skills shows that you're interested in what they're saying. So they feel like you're interested. Then people just love talking sometimes, like they'll go off and they can talk for like 10 minutes straight. Let me give you an example. This I was this week, I was working in Oakland. I'm an electronics technician. So I was working on this alarm panel at a security security booth at this parking lot. And there was this. There's this guy there. And he was chilling. He was on his phone and stuff like that talking to people. And I was working on this alarm panel. I was working on it for a couple hours. But so I was like rewiring all this stuff. And I overheard him talking on the phone how he was excited. He was like super stoked about having his new album come out. So when he got off the phone, I was like, Oh, you got I was like, I heard you say you have an album coming out. And he's like, Yeah, I was like, so what do you do? He's like, Oh, I'm a rapper. And I myself, I'm into making music. I've been doing it for a while. I make mostly like electronic music like that. The intro music and the outro music on this podcast is something that I made myself. And so I knew I knew pretty much that I'd be able to chat up, chat him up about it. Because you know, I like rap music too. So I knew that. I had a pretty good sense that Oh, yeah, we'll be talking about this for a minute. So yeah, I was like, Oh, that's cool. I was like, so what kind of music you make. He's like, I'm a rapper. I don't know. He just started talking about it. And I pretty I pretty much didn't have to say anything for about 10 minutes. I just was actively listening. And man this guy was he told me everything about his rap career and his inspirations and his his rap crew. In the end, I started asking him specifics about the recording, like, Oh, yeah, where do you record it at? Do you make your own? Do you make your own music? Or do you have a music producer you work with? So I don't know. It's just one of those things, too. It's like, I've, I have more expanded interests. I could talk about all kinds of things with people. But yeah, so let me tell you when you're one of the things I do when I'm listening They talk about active listening, there's a lot of good tips for active listening. So I'll do is, you know, I'll just like make sure I have really good eye contact, I'll just be kind of kick back and relax body language, but I'll be very attentive and focused on what the person is talking about, I'll try to be completely present with them. I'll kind of just like nod my head here and there to make sure that they kind of like nodding, like a slow nod of your head is a really good tip that I use quite a bit. It kind of does signals. It does signal agreement, but it also kind of just signals. Yes, I'm here. I'm still listening as well. And then I'll, you know, I'll just make short comments as as they go along. I'm like, like, Yeah, okay. Okay, cool. Yeah. Interesting, huh? You know, I'll just make little, because I've, what I've done in the past is I've done none of those things where I don't nod. And I don't say anything. And the person will frequently be like, Do you understand what I'm saying? So you do have to kind of like, give them feedback as they're talking. Yeah, you just do a lot of that. And then the nice thing about listening a lot, and not trying to like, come up with something clever to say, or as they're talking is, they'll give you all kinds of information when they're talking. And they'll give you different avenues and different roads that your conversation can go on. But you really have to start sensing, like the flow of the conversation, like, should I jump in with this? Or should I say that you kind of just I like to, I really like to let it flow naturally. But they will tell you all kinds of stuff that is really good stuff to keep talking about. I heard I remember hearing the concept of a campfire. So think of a conversation as a campfire where it's like, sometimes you'll put in sticks to keep it going. And sometimes you'll put in logs. So you don't always have to have like a big juicy, like, Great point. To add to the conversation. Sometimes you can just throw little twigs and sticks in there to keep it going. So yeah, I mean, I knew when I asked him about his his record release party and his album coming out, that's basically a log. But you can always like just throw in little sticks and like, stick to keep it going. So yeah, I mean, when so like, a lot of times, this happens a lot of times when I'll talk to someone, and it doesn't happen every time. But it does happen frequently enough that it's that it's really interesting that you can just ask a couple questions. And if you just tap into something that they're really interested or like to talk about, and then and then you immediately go into, yeah, tell me about it. I'm really interested. And I'm going to listen and let you talk, you can easily find yourself in 10 minute listening session. Which is, you know, most of time is cool, but sometimes, I don't know, I've noticed with some friends that I've had in the past where they like to talk so much that I'm constantly having to interject. So I can say something or else it's basically going to be three hours of them talking. And like, I'm not able to say anything. And then or no, that's just not fun. That's not really a conversation. It's more of a monologue. So I don't know, some people that have the gift of gab, they're not they're not necessarily, they don't necessarily have really good social skills, because all they do is talk and they don't know how to listen. So just because you talk a lot doesn't necessarily mean your social skills are good, you have to learn how to be a good listener, you know, when it's like really too close friends, it should be about 5050 you know, percent of one person talking one person listening doesn't have to be exactly that. But you get the idea. It shouldn't be like 98%, one person talking 2% the other person talking. But a lot of times when I meet someone new, if they like to talk, I'll let them talk like 80% of the time. I'm fine with that. I don't, I can. I like to learn something new. And usually I could learn something cool or interesting when I just talk to someone new about stuff. I'll give you another tip about active listening. I was I was working at these clinics. And I was working on these copiers and printers and stuff like that. And so sometimes I'd get a call and I'd have to go and deal with a customer and you know, a lot of times I would know that the customers like kind of difficult or if the same fact fax machine had broken like eight times in the last three months, they're probably getting pretty pissed off. So and if it's a combination of the two, I was in for a real ride. So I always had like a clipboard with like paper, blank paper on it. So I would take notes on there, whatever. So for example, I would go to, let's just say, I remember this one call where I went to, and the nurse lady she was, she was really mad. She was like telling me, this thing gets keeps breaking all the time. And I'm just so sick of this. So I came up with a pretty good technique where I would just, you know, stand there with my, and make sure my arms weren't crossed, keep my arms open my body language open, I focused my attention on them. I would just say, okay, so can you tell me what's been going on recently with it, and they would start talking, and you know, they're pretty bad. She'd be pretty mad or whatever. And I made it a point to just listen, listen, and then listen, and then listen, and then listen, because I noticed that so many technicians, they would just cut them off, like mid sentence, and they would just make them more mad. And it would happen so much. I'm like, these people just not understanding that when you cut somebody off, when they're pissed off, that it just makes them more pissed off, and it makes your job harder. So why would you do it, it just makes your job more difficult. So I would just let them talk and talk. You know, I'd say most of the time, and they would talk for about two or three minutes straight. And that's really not that long. Every once while it'd be like, five minutes, which can feel like a very long time. And sometimes they would just start repeating themselves. And if they did start repeating themselves, I would interject and then try to like, gently cut off and then go into what I was gonna say. But if they weren't, you know, I'd usually just let them talk it out. Because they, by the end, they would see that I'm paying attention. And if they're given me a lot of information, I would just I would also start writing down on my clipboard, start taking notes. And just by doing that, showing them actively listening, nodding and saying, Okay, and then I would also remember this technique, this is very useful. It's called reflective listening. So sometimes you can do reflective listening by restating a couple points are a couple facts that they had stated to you. Like I would say, like, okay, so it's been making noise. And it also, it just won't print this thing, or whatever. So that's like, that's like reflecting factual information. But you can also use reflective listening for reflecting emotion. So I would frequently say, something to the effect of, Oh, yeah, that sounds like that'd be really frustrating. And they're like, Yeah, it is. And that little thing, man, I tell you what that thing works. So amazingly well, I do it all the time. And I and I don't just do it as a technique or a tactic, which I did first, because I didn't really understand it. But now I do it. Like when I'm talking to friends and stuff like that. I'll reflect back emotions, it really shows, I don't know, it just helps you connect in some weird way. And it's really super useful. So I recommend trying it out. Just doing it more, because it's such a great way. And I'll tell you what, most of the time when a customer's pissed off. Within 10 minutes, they're like, okay, thank you so much. Thank you, you know, for like, thanking me, and I didn't even do anything except listen. So that's, that's why listening skills are super important. You really want to develop your active listening skills, like you know, slowly nodding, commenting back. And then reflective listening a lot open body language, really good eye contact, make sure you don't have like resting bitchface when you're doing your, when you're, you know, being present, stuff like that. So speaking of being present, we're gonna talk about being present for a minute. It's very, you know, closely related to listening, but I think it's a little different. Or it overlaps in some way. I know that when I, one of the first things I was getting into at the same time of learning social skills, I started learning more about Eastern philosophy. And then, and specifically, I was learning about something called the doubt aging. I really, really recommend checking out this guy's audio book. It's called, I think it's just called the doubt aging. And he also has a second audio book about Eastern philosophy called the second book of the Dow. I'll tell you what, the audio books, they're pretty short. They're like two hours long, or like an hour long, but I probably listened to them about 30 times. That's Like the most I've ever listened to something because I don't know, it just it goes back like 2000 years, 2500 years or something. But it's the philosophy behind it. It's really simple. I mean, one of the things was like, that came from it was a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step or something like that, you know, some pretty, pretty wild stuff. But I found that a lot of the Eastern Zen stuff was really helpful with social skills, the main one being of just being present with people just being present in your own life and stuff like that. So I would I tried meditation. There was this. There was like a Buddhist center in West Sacramento. I always drove by it. I'm like, What is that place? Because it was just like some big compound. And I googled it. And it was like, I'm like, Oh, it's a Buddhist, carnal colony. And I noticed on our web page, it said, free meditation classes. And I was like, Oh, yeah, that might be cool. I might like to try meditation. So I signed up for it. And when I got there, it was like, it was so legit. It was like, you know, you go in the compound. And ever all these monks are wearing like the old school monk outfits and stuff like that. And you go into this, like, this, like meditation hall, it was like nice and like dim. And there was like a Giant Buddha on one side, and there was like, like, incense burning and stuff like that. And there's like, two monks are like, oh, welcome. And there's, like, three of us there. It's like, no one there. And it was perfect, though, because we just like, chilled and meditated for like, you know, 30 minutes, 40 minutes. And then we would talk about meditation. And I did that for, I don't know, I think it was, like 10 weeks or 10 weeks or something. But it was so amazing. And it's really simple. I mean, meditation. To me, there's a bunch of different ways you can do it. But the most basic is just trying to sit quietly. And you could do a cross legged or in a chair, or whatever. And just like trying not to think, because when you try to, when you sit and close your eyes, you're going to start thinking about stuff. So the key is just to not think and try to do it for like, you know, 10 minutes, five minutes, 20 minutes, some people do it for hours, but I don't know, I think it just really helps with socializing, it helps with listening, because you can learn to be more present, I would recommend just trying it out. It's really good practice. I think a couple things that I wanted to mention a couple things. talked about, like, earlier about getting a job that would help you socialize was, uh, two years ago, it's been two years ago. Now, I was visiting a friend out in Pennsylvania. And I was out there all summer. And he told me, he's like, Hey, you know, if you want to make some money, you could use one of my cars for Uber. Because I was I basically wasn't doing anything. So I was like, Yeah, that sounds awesome. And I didn't realize it. But I kind of got the job for Uber to just make some money. But I realized right away and like, office is such a great way to work on social skills, because you basically meet new people like every, every, like 30 minutes to an hour, I would recommend trying it out, like sign up for Lyft or Uber, just to work on your social skills. The way I did it is I found that maybe about half the people who got in the Uber weren't particularly interested in talking. I know that sometimes when I get an Uber, I don't really feel like talking. But sometimes I do. And I'm totally willing to like chat someone up. So a lot of times, I'll just be like, Hey, how's it going? And they'd get in. I'm like, so how's your day gone? And that's really all I did. And I would build a tool right away if they want to talk or if they don't want to talk. And sometimes when they do want to talk. It's pretty like mundane, basic stuff. But other times, I'd say like, you know, at least once or twice a night, I would get into some like seriously deep conversations with people. And, man, I just thought it was it was a really fun experience, to be honest, like, be picking up. I would try not to pick up people too late at night, because I don't really want to pick up drunk people. I'd usually quit around and usually quit around 11 o'clock or 10 o'clock. Or one time I picked up this guy. He's like, he's like, he's like, Can I smoke in your car? And I was like, No, you can't. It's it's actually not my car. My friend's car. He's like, dude, I'll give you 20 bucks. I was like, okay, but you can only smoke half of it. And he's, I don't know, we just started talking. And he's like, Yeah, I just met this girl I used to go to high school with I was talking her on Facebook, and I'm married right now, but I don't know. I just wanted to meet up with her. He's like, I'm gonna meet up with her at a hotel. So basically, he's telling me how he's gonna go cheat on us. Wife. Like, I don't know, it's just like an interesting conversation. I just, I just talked to so many pretty, really cool people. And I thought it was a really great experience. And I recommend giving it a shot, trying it out if you've, if you don't know how to work on your social skills any other way, that's a really great way. So let's see in next week, we're going to be talking about the logistics of saying hello to people, like the actual specifics like mechanical, little details about it. And we're also going to talk about, you know, how to contact information from us someone else how to, like keep in touch, how to maintain contact, or, you know, just logistics around that to some specific, very specific stuff. They think that's all for this week. I hope you guys have a great week. Go out there and make sure you talk to at least one or two new people a day. Keep pushing the conversations a little further than yours than you are used to. And I'll see you guys next week. Take care