The Leader Mentality
The Leader Mentality
Active Listening Turns Conversations Into Trust And Action
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You can feel it when someone is truly listening. The pace slows. The questions sharpen. The space feels safe enough to share the real story. That’s the heart of this conversation as we dive into how active listening transforms sales calls, team meetings, and family moments into places where trust and action thrive.
We unpack the everyday traps that break connection—like “boomerang” questions that swing back to ourselves and nodding along while planning a rebuttal. Then we offer practical tools to flip the script. Our go-to is the AMP method: Ask with intention to surface what matters, Mirror the words and emotions you hear to show you’re present, and Paraphrase to confirm understanding before you respond. We talk about reading tone and body language, letting silence work for you, and spotting when a stated need is really a symptom of something deeper.
Presence isn’t just a mindset; it’s logistics. We share simple habits that send powerful signals of care: silence your phone, close your laptop, and if your mind is crowded, set a short, specific time to reconnect so you can give full attention. We connect these behaviors to leadership and team culture, showing how genuine listening drives buy-in and trust, referencing insights aligned with The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Along the way, we point to public examples—Oprah’s interviews and Princess Diana’s human connection—as models of listening that invites honesty rather than performance.
Finally, we turn inward. If you don’t listen to yourself, it’s hard to be present for anyone else. We talk about clearing mental noise, checking your body’s signals, and preparing questions that guide without hijacking. Expect tangible takeaways you can use in your next one-on-one, client meeting, or hard talk at home. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review telling us one habit you’ll change to be a better listener.
Welcome to the Leader Mentality Show where Rob Clemens and Nick DiStefano is back with us today.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00:All right, man. I did that little game showy sounding. Nick Di Stefano. I apologize to the viewers.
SPEAKER_01:Don't don't come on now.
SPEAKER_00:I've been I've been watching too much uh late night TV or something, but anyway. Well, listen, uh, we we had a great show last week. It was a lot of fun to talk about, but I had teased the idea of a show that we're gonna be doing today, and it's called Mastering the Art of Active Listening. And I'm gonna tell you something. The art of active listening is honestly, I believe, the key to life. It's not just the key to being a better salesman, to being a better manager, it's to be a better husband or wife, it's to be in a better parent, it's to be a better friend. The art of active listening. Am I sitting here when I'm listening to you, just waiting to say my bit, and and therefore I'm not really soaking it in? Yeah. Or am I really listening to what you need? And I I heard this thing the other day. I thought it was really funny. Uh that Pete Davidson was on uh the Jimmy Fallon show. Late night. Yeah, late night. Yeah, there you go. That's the reason why. And he said, you know, he goes, You got a hard job, Jimmy. And he said, because you have to listen to these guests and just pretend everything's so interesting. And he kind of made it in a funny way. Yeah, sure. But but the truth is that there is an art form to it, but it's really listening to what somebody's saying, and not just the surface of what they're saying, but reading between the lines. We're looking at the tonality and the body language. 100%. And if you can master this, I believe that really you're opening up your doors to the the world of success, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I love it. I really hope everyone was listening to exactly what you just said. Yeah because you were. That was too far. Now he's dropping the drum somebody. He's really been watching too much Jimmy Stalling. Uh yeah, uh the reason I say that is because I truly think just the idea that active listening is the key to so many areas of life. Like that's it's a perfect way for us to open the show because you know, when we talk about the leader mentality, you know, some people have leadership roles by, you know, the nature of their job. Sometimes some people are leaders as parents, some people are leaders as employees, but leadership is a verb and active listening is something we do. It's not passive, it's not just sitting here and you know, like hearing it in your your your ears, it's letting the person know you've heard them, it's leaning in, it's you know, being curious, you know, to go back to a past show, it's being curious. So when you say that it's key to all these areas of life, it makes me curious about, you know, where have the the times been that active listening has failed you, right? Or maybe it makes me also wonder like, well, are there times when we can think about I've been so good at listening, or someone's been so good at listening that it has made me a better person or has changed something for me at life, you know, I can I could think about that for me personally, but it made me curious as you were saying it, like this is not just about business, this is about life in general. And I love that that's how we started.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, it's it's important uh to me. Uh so I've I've been in sales roles most of my life, and I feel like naturally when I bring out a new salesman or saleswoman uh with me, that a lot of times their natural thing is they're gonna they're thinking, I'm gonna listen to everything you're saying, Rob, and then I'm gonna rebut everybody with exactly the way you're rebutting them. And I will usually say, Don't don't do that. Uh that's a failure because now you're just you're a you're like a parrot that's just repeating things without understanding why I'm saying them. And number two is most salespeople think that they've studied all about the product and they know everything about the product, and that now they're ready to go out and sell a million dollars worth and and they're missing the point of there's only one reason you're there. As a salesperson, there is only one reason you're there. Somebody has a need and you are there to satisfy the need. And how the heck do you know what the need is if you have not listened to them in the first place? So somebody comes in, and here's a here's an example I've learned from years of sales. Okay. Sometimes people tell you they think they need something. And if you ask them questions and you say, Well, tell me about why you you believe that, and you actively listen to what they're telling you, you'll find out that what they think they need is not what they need at all. So now you find a different solution for them. And they're and I'll hear this out of people quite often in my sales career. They'll go, Nobody else said that to me, Ryan. Nobody else even mentioned that to me. And it's not that I'm doing some magic trick or any, you know, trying to fool them into doing something. I'm just literally listening to what you're telling me you need and can I provide that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's you're listening, and then it's almost like you're it's all I think of it like you know, it's like a sweater almost. Like people have like these little like things, it's funny, I'm wearing a sweater, but like you can almost find a thread of curiosity, and it's our job as active listeners to unravel that, to ask the next question, to let the person know, hey, I heard you say this, and it makes me curious about if we are the best person for you. Maybe, maybe we're not. Um, and it's it's they're like, whoa, like I didn't expect you to say that. Yeah. Then they think, well, okay, maybe they really are listening to me. They're not here to just pitch me, they're here to actually hear me out and how I'm unique as a customer compared to other people. You know, and you could do the same thing with employees, you know, we set these standards, and then someone comes in and does something different, and we could go, all right, well, you don't fit in line, or we could try and figure out why and ask the question and listen to what their experience is, and then actually determine if they are the right fit rather than just going, okay, well, they're they don't fit our company. See you later. Yeah. You know, but we're not curious and we don't take the time to slow down and listen. And well, so important.
SPEAKER_00:So let's talk about how do we do it? We we've said active listening a whole bunch, and I feel like there's a little a little flaw in what I did today because I I dived right into, you know, here's how it's good and all these things. But the real point is, is let's let's let's start back from a moment and say, what is non-active listening? Can can you kind of help define that for the crowd?
SPEAKER_01:Sure. Well, so I I love love the question. Um non-active listening is almost when a person is one, you don't know that they're listening. So I I say to people all the time that you know, if you don't tell me you're listening or show me that you're listening, your ears do not have the ability to talk. You have to use your ears to hear, but listening is using all the rest of your body language, your tone, the way you carry yourself. You know, if we go back and we'll look at our our film here and we were to look at you starting, you might have jumped right into active listening. Um, but I don't know, I was I felt like I was a little exaggerated. I'm sure Lauren will watch this and be like, what the heck was Nick doing? But I was like, oh okay, I'm gonna really she's like, why is he getting so close to Rob? What's happening? Like, I like intentionally leaned in because it's non-active listening, is thinking, okay, I've just heard this person, and then I start talking about my point. Um, you know, there's this this uh wonderful research study that I just read about this thing called boomer asking, and it's not boomer because terms of like boom, so no anyone that's a boomer and you're listening to this, it has nothing to do with generation, it's not age-related boomerang. So it's me asking you a question just so that I can boomerang it back and tell you the answer of the same question that I've just asked you. So it's me going, Hey, how is your weekend? And you tell me your thing, and then we've all experienced this. Then rather than actually asking another question, oh fantastic. Tell me about you know this thing that you did. I want to know, like, what was your favorite restaurant that you went to while you were in Charleston this weekend? Yeah, what I do instead is I'm like, oh, cool. Let me tell you about what I did. Right, right. I just I go right so at that point, do you feel heard? No, that's not active listening. It is you boomer, you ask the question just so that you can talk, right? And and everyone has motives for why they're talking, but if you don't listen actively, you're gonna miss it.
SPEAKER_00:You made me think of uh so when I was getting into my career, and this is a little segment of the show we like to call Rob Talks About His Life. I'm definitely gonna actively listen.
SPEAKER_01:Here we go.
SPEAKER_00:You know, no, no, but it's taking note, it's a simple thing, but it was one of my first, you know, semi-professional jobs, and there was this high-powered, you know, GM regional manager kind of guy. And he would come in the room and and you know, he he did the the right thing. We always hear this as leaders, you know, go in and acknowledge all the people in the room and get to know your people. But he'd do this thing where you go like uh he you'd be like, Hey Rob, how you doing? And and before I can answer it, he's walking off with the next person. I'm like, oh, hey, thanks for trying. Uh, I guess I didn't say anything past enough. And and so that is not active listening, it is perpetrating like you're active listening or attempting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, pretending that you care.
SPEAKER_00:And so in this way, I think that the most common thing is is I like your boomerang idea. If you want to actually uh hear somebody out, you I think sometimes women are better than men at on the surface. I'm not saying all of them, and I'm not stereotyping, but I listen to the way that my wife communicates with her friends, and a lot of times it'll be like, you know, how did you feel when this happened? And they'll be like, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she goes, Well, what did you think next? And there's there's this great flow of gathering information to empathize. Yeah. And then by the end of it, you you you'll say, How was it? And she'll she'll break it all down. Sometimes I'll get home and my wife will ask me a question about you know, some you know, you know, conversation I had with a friend. She'll be like, Well, well, so what did his dad think of that? I'm like, How the heck would I know what his dad thinks? But but but I wasn't listening to that. Right, right. But but the idea is it and what I'm saying is it's not that I wasn't listening, but there is a boomerang at boomeranging aspect that if you do that, you're actually further engaging the person and giving yourself more ability to do it. And I feel like the guys sometimes will we're we're staying on the surface so much where women are digging deeper. Um, and so that could be a very powerful sales technique, but you also have to know limits to everything, right? Sure, absolutely, especially in a sales presentation. You just can't keep asking questions forever, but sure, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:But it's I think it's you can't keep asking questions forever. You have to ask with intention. And I think that's what it sounds like your wife is doing, or what you know, we're that a lot of folks do really well is that they're great at actually asking with intention. Um, then they mirror what the person says, so they say, Oh my gosh, my day was awful and this thing happened, and you know, they mirror it back and they say, Oh, your day was awful. What about this thing? Right, and they or they paraphrase it. That you know, that's a fantastic skill of active listeners, is they say, you know, what I'm hearing you tell me is this, this, and this. Am I am I on the same page, right? Yeah, um, really, I it and folks listening probably didn't pick up on this, but if you ask, mirror, and paraphrase, that spells out amp, right? So I like to think of it as like, how am I amplifying my listening? Okay, right? How am I being a better listener by asking it with intention, mirroring? That's sounds like you had a really bad day, um, right? Or paraphrasing and saying, you know, this is what it's I'm hearing you tell me. And we know that the person has actually listened. Um, that can happen in the moment. It's even more powerful, and we've all had this experience when someone comes back to us a week later and it sounds like your GM from the beginning was like, How are you? and then never heard from you again. But imagine if he did actually hear you and you told him something, and then two months from now he comes back and he goes, Oh Rob, it's so great to see you again. Yeah. How's your mom doing? Yeah, yeah. You're like, oh, whoa, whoa. Like we call it back and we let the person know that we've truly heard. That's not just asking with intention, it's actually like remembering it and letting the person know you've heard them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I think that's that's a very, very good tip. And I think that since I I'm gonna, you know, for the rest of this conversation, I'm I'm not gonna go so much into the sales side because I think we made the point. You gotta listen and you gotta, but but when you talk about how how are you thriving through this, how are you finding a way to use this art of active listening to your favor, there's a couple things you need to do first. One of them we need to know is that you have to have your mind clear yourself to do it. If I've got a million things on my mind, I'm not in a state of mind to practice active listening sometimes. And I know that may not be uh what people think I was gonna say here. That's true. But the truth is is I've I've got a million things on my mind. This may not be the time for me to have that deep conversation with you. And I have to know that about myself, right? I have to say, hey, look, I do want to hear more about this, but I need to get this done first. Give me, give me 15 minutes and can we talk? And sometimes the answer may be no, and that's okay. If it's no, then you have to make a priority uh adjustment. But the reason I say that is that part of this active listening thing means you have to have your mind clear of your own things at that point. Uh be engaged. But if you got a list of things that are way important to you at this very moment, uh I would say to you, that may be the thing you need to take care of before you can engage in that. But at the same time, if you find yourself know thyself, if you're always more important than the person you're talking to, you may just have a problem.
SPEAKER_01:At that point, you're not actually going to actively listen to it's it's you you you don't at that point you don't care, right? To actively listen, you gotta actually care. You actually have to care. You actually have to care. It sounds so simple, but like don't be a selfish jerk and like think that you know everything you have to say is the greatest thing. Um, and I know everyone listening to this, you know, that's that's how they are. No one's listening to this going, well, you know what, I'm I'm a I'm a jerk and I should listen to this so I can be a better person, right? But I I think that the reality is like, you know, we ask questions, but if we don't ask ourselves the questions, is what you're saying, right? Like if we don't set the boundary of like, do I need to give this person the time now or and like make that decision? And even to go back to some of our resilience conversation from the last show of you know, we have to be able to come back to center and like come and be in the moment and think I'm it's okay if I spend a little bit of extra time and have this conversation, or if I can't, I need to be honest and say, I can't do this right now, but I can do it in another 10 minutes. Yeah, and that's what you're saying. And I appreciate that. I um magic, I don't think it's easy.
SPEAKER_00:It's it's not easy, but you have to, you know, some of it goes back to the awareness we always talk about. And and look, here's the other thing I'll say that is a technique of mine, and believe me, I'm you know, I'm I'm not the the the expert of all things when it comes to this, but what I mean is I like to listen with my eyes. Now, what I mean by listening with my eyes is obviously if your eyes are fully engaged, you're like a like a like a psychopath. No, what when I say listen with my eyes, I specifically mean well, there is an empathy in the eyes, but I'm actually not really going that route. What I'm saying is is some people, now we sit here and sometimes I think we oversimplify to make a point, but if we're talking about it, right, exactly. No, if we're if we're if we're oversimplifying, we make it sound like it's so easy. The truth is, is some people naturally are not wanting to give up a bunch of information right now. So as we're sitting here talking about volleying information, I like to know where a person's state of mind is. So if I'm gonna go into a conversation with you, you know, maybe you don't have time to talk right now. And I'm ready to do all this active listening, and you don't have time to do me active get information giving. What I mean by that is we have to go back to let's not make this super, super simplified where I'm going. I'm gonna practice active listening all day long, but rather what is the intent of the active listening?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What is the intent? But the intent is to truly show care and show interest in what somebody's talking about. So I think that's the thing we have to look at.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I I agree. I also think in the world we live in, and I'm I'm not this I'm not disagreeing. Okay. I I just think in the world we live in, if you don't schedule it, you're not intentional about like how you're going to do this, and you almost have like a strategy for listening, which sounds so um like counterintuitive to the just the like counter to the idea that you know we have to care. Like you have to have a and truly a strategy to care, which again sounds so ridiculous, but you think about all the things we have to do every day and all the the all the bells and the whistles and the things that are distractions. I remember one of my first supervisors when I would go into her office, she would literally shut her laptop and say, Hey, you've got my full undivided attention. Okay, like it was just simply a sign. Now, did it mean that like the phone wasn't gonna ring or her cell phone wasn't gonna go off? No, but if I if I take my phone and say, hold on, I'm gonna put this on silent real quick and I'm gonna shut my desktop off so that I can have a conversation with you and be interrupt, not be interrupted. That shows someone that I'm fully present with them. Um, and I I think that's the stuff of like scheduling it, being intentional, um, coming up with different questions you want to ask your employees every week.
SPEAKER_00:You know, it's it's funny. I I agree with you completely, and it's funny because I you know, I like to I I do like to counterpoint things, but I'm like trying to think of like um a reason active listening won't work, and there is none. That's the beautiful part. Active listening is always a good thing. Well, let me throw this out. I uh we've got a few minutes left. I'm gonna really test you. And I'm and but I'll help you out here. Here we go. I'm going to ask you something, and and you can't say your mom or your dad or your best friend, it's gotta be somebody somebody would know. Give me the a an example of one of the best active listeners that you've seen, but it has to be somebody that people would know. And if you don't have one off the top of your head, I'll go first. I'll let you go first because I've got two, but I'm trying to think of an example of it. So I'm gonna tell you about a person that uh when I start talking about her, maybe you'll figure it out. Um, she uh has become a some sort of a worldwide phenomenon. She's been an actress, um, she has uh been an author. Uh she has hatched the careers of many people, including Dr. Phil. Um, and uh she got her career started talking to people and actively listening to them. And who am I talking about? You're talking about Oprah. Oprah Winfrey. We're talking about one of the world's uh more wealthy people, and you go, how did she get it started? Well, it was through the act of art, uh the act of basically active listening, which that's a little too much acts in one word, but but my point is she got into a a career where she said, Hey, tell me about what's going on, listened, pulled the information out, and was able to extract information and and give information through this very powerful uh technique.
SPEAKER_01:I love it. I love that you went there. Um and I I couldn't agree more. One of the things I think she did, though, and it's why I'm gonna pick the person I'll I'll pick, is that she connected with people, right? When we actively listen, we are connected with others. People feel something, and there's a massive sense of emotion. Um, the person I think of uh is specifically, I think of Princess Diana. Okay. Um, right? And the reason I say that is because I think some of what she did in the AIDS crisis was she connected with people. She went into spaces and she listened. You know, I think about the you know, the royals and and what they can and can't actually do. And, you know, you think about like the queen. Yeah, you know, I wouldn't say that from like what I've and I'm sure she was a great listener. She had tons of audiences and tons of people who talked to her and she heard everything under the sun for you know decades on decades. Um, but she was also very like put together and very um stoic in the way she carried herself. Whereas I look at Princess Diana and I think of her as someone who was real and connected, and um, and that's why I think her death resonated with so many people because it was like she felt like someone that we could relate to. It was human, personal, and like that's what active listeners do. It's you know, I'm not talking to a wall, I'm talking to someone that's gonna like give me some feedback and let me know that I have something valuable to say. And absolutely if you think about if I care, then I should actively listen. And if I do that, I'm connecting with people.
SPEAKER_00:I I love that. Yeah, I think about this, and and this probably our last thought for for the show today, because I I love it, but sometimes when you go too long, it makes it harder for people to actively listen to us. Listen to us. But but with that said, if you're a manager and you you like to have team meetings and you bring people into the room, uh practice this art is very important. You know, you're you're ultimately sometimes having an MC type of meeting. Hey, we're we're gonna talk about quarterly earnings today, and we're gonna talk about this. And yes, you're you're busy doling out responsibilities, but are you actually listening to your team? And uh there there's books like um uh The Five Dysfunctions of Five Dysfunctions of a Team and Patrick Lynn's. Beautiful book, and he talks about the fact that uh people have to buy in, but buying in be it includes being heard, it includes trusting. Trust. And a lot of times if if you don't listen and you don't understand your people, how can you get them to feel trust to actually tell you anything? And and if they don't think you're listening, why would they tell you anything? So uh very powerful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, a hundred percent. I hope people will listen to this and go out there and ask better questions and listen to the answers. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Or prepare to be a tyrant. Yeah, something like that. I don't know why I threw that in, but it's oh my gosh, she was listening so well. I was I'm practicing no. Well, hey, look, Nick, very good tips for this time. I appreciate it. I know that um uh you you've had a lot on your personal plate lately. Uh you've been doing some practicing for some running, and yeah, by the time this show airs, you may have already ran. So but I look forward to talking about that on an upcoming show.
SPEAKER_01:Talk about some resilience and the ways that I listened to myself for 24 hours as I ran around in a circle. Yeah. Um all of this relates to what I'm about to do. Uh so yeah, I'm I'm excited to talk about it.
SPEAKER_00:I I like that. You know, maybe maybe you just introduced something else we didn't talk about today, but I think it's it's it's interesting. Active listening to yourself.
SPEAKER_01:It is but no, I think we talk about it a little bit because you were saying clear your mind. Yeah, yeah. Because I think if you don't think about and ask yourself the questions and listen to the things going on inside your head, you can't do it for others. And I think you did a great job of pointing that out. So I did do it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I you know, and and all I'm saying there too, just to dive a little deeper, is is maybe as we look at a place to end the show off, I sometimes say, if you are getting to that point where you're just stuck in your rut and you're just going full steam ahead and you're not taking a minute to sit back and go, how is my body feeling? You made me think about when you talk about running, and we always talk about listening to your body, you know, how does your legs feel? How does your body feel? You're not listening to yourself and you're so busy in the grind. So maybe we're kind of uh overlapping a few show ideas. But anyway, well, listen, we're gonna call it a show for today. We appreciate you all listening. If you're out there and you're active listening, keep doing more of it. Find ways to find uh people that you can talk more with and glean more information and go out and be the best success you can. So, well, Nick, appreciate you being on again. Thanks for having me, Rob. Thanks for another great show. We'll see y'all next time on the Leader Mentality Show. Well, Rob Clemens.
