The Core Communication Mistake That’s Silently Sabotaging Your Relationships (29)

Have you ever considered the transformative impact of listening without an agenda? This episode challenges the notion that fast-paced conversations need to fit into preconceived molds. We share insightful stories from the coaching world, revealing how assumptions can obscure true understanding, whether in professional environments or everyday interactions with family and friends. Drawing inspiration from Robert Fritz's art class exercise, we delve into the world of structural thinking to uncover how it can help us clear away these blinders, allowing for more meaningful communication and deeper connections with those around us.

Embark on a journey to challenge your brain's autopilot mode, which often fills in the gaps with assumptions and biases. Discover techniques like "emptying the cup" and crafting precise mental images to enhance your communication and build trust. In sharing a powerful personal coaching story, we highlight the profound impact of awareness and choice in reshaping perceptions. As we wrap up, we encourage you to think of someone who would benefit from these insights and pass this episode along, creating a ripple effect of mindful communication. Let's keep these important conversations going, perhaps over a cup of coffee, and see where this exploration of listening takes us.

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Transcript

The Art of Truly Listening

Speaker 1 0:00

Do you listen to hear or listen to respond? Well, that's what today's episode is essentially all about. You know, the world has got so crazy and moves so fast. Too often we partake in conversations where we make up our own little movie about what the person is actually saying to us. We make assumptions, we put what they are telling us into little boxes, even though a lot of what is being said may have nothing to do with how we have categorized the actual information they've telling us into little boxes, even though a lot of what is being said may have nothing to do with how we have categorized the actual information they've given us. So, dare I say, the art of listening truly listening, with no agenda is a skill that we all, including me, could do with practicing a little more, and that's what today's episode is all about.

Speaker 1 0:45

If there was a guarantee that you could create your dream life, a life that truly mattered to you, would you want it? My name is Terri-Ann Palmer-Peacock and I am delighted to welcome you to the One Person Podcast. I have a belief that one person can make a difference in the world. When we show up as the best version of ourselves, when we create and live our dream lives, we make a positive impact on ourselves and the world around us. So if simple, actionable, step-by-step strategies, tools and tips on how to do that inspires you, then you are in the right place, my friend. So let's get started. You are in the right place, my friend, so let's get started. Hey there, beautiful people. Well, this week we're going to dive into something that's honestly revolutionary for a lot of people. Last week, we talked about structures and why they're the secret source to lasting change. Today, we're going to tackle something that might make some people a little bit uncomfortable, but in the best possible way.

Speaker 1 1:47

Now I was having a conversation with a friend who was also a coach, and she was sharing a couple of issues she was having with her clients and was asking for advice. Now, as she relayed to me what had been going on for her lately, I realized she wasn't actually listening to what her clients were saying. She was listening for what she expected them to say, and people do this all the time without realizing it. So, for the purpose of this story, I've asked her to give me more details, and so she told me about her client. Now, let's call her Maya. Now, obviously that's not her name, but for this story it's a good name. Now Maya was talking about her struggles with scaling her online business and I asked my friend what she was thinking as her client. Maya was telling her the story of what was going on. Now my friend was mentally checking off boxes. I could actually see it physically in her face Yep typical visibility issue. Yep classical mindset block. Yep standard pricing problems. She was so busy fitting her client into her pre-existing coaching frameworks that she missed most of what she was actually saying.

Speaker 1 3:00

Now, this isn't just prevalent in the coaching industry. This happens in everyday life all the time. I mean, think about it. How many times do your kids come home to you with a problem and because you've heard it all before, you automatically unconsciously go into the mental checkbox for how to solve it. You stop listening to what they are actually saying. Now, if you haven't listened to last week's episode, please go back and listen to it, because you'll get another level of understanding and awareness about what I'm sharing today if you do so.

Speaker 1 3:33

I often call this, when I'm working with coaches, the coaching template trap, because here's the thing as coaches, we're trained to recognize patterns. Now, I always remember in my first coaching certification course, I was told to look for the rexes, which is blah, blah, blah, blah blah rex, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah rex. So when a client's talking, you're really listening for those little wee rexes that stand out for what they're trying to say. Now we've worked with hundreds of clients in our coaching business and we've developed some amazing frameworks and tools, but sometimes these very tools can become blinders that stop us from seeing what's really there. Sometimes, as parents, we stop seeing what is truly going on with our kids because we get caught in the way things have always been done. Sometimes, our friends, we are so used to behaving and responding in a certain way, we stop listening to what our friend is really trying to communicate with us. Now, even today, I was having coffee with a friend and caught myself saying you're problem solving, you're not in the creative process, as it was. He did want some advice, and I've been doing this long enough to know when someone desperately wants help and when someone wants a friend, and as much as he wanted help, he needed a friend more. In fact, we're all guilty of getting caught up in our own frameworks and processes, but here's where it gets interesting and where we can make a massive difference in our coaching, our relationships and our communication.

Speaker 1 5:08

It's seeing what's actually there. Now, I was reading a book by Robert Fritz, who was talking about an exercise he teaches in an art class. He takes students out of the city and gets them to look at a distant building on a hazy day. Now most students know the building is made of bricks that are typically red in color. So when asked what color the building is, they all say red. In fact, they swear the building is red. But then they do an exercise to isolate the color and what they see completely shocks them. The color of the building is actually blue. You see, the atmosphere between them and the building completely changes. What's actually there? Now, as coaches, parents, teachers and partners, we do this all the time. We see what we expect to see, not what's actually there. And this, my friends, is where the magic of structural thinking comes in and what this episode is all about. So there are four steps to clear seeing, or seeing what is actually in front of us.

Speaker 1 6:16

Now I'm going to use an example, as if you are a coach for context, but this could be having a conversation in your business with clients or simply communicating, everyday communication with friends and family. It's cross contextual. So the first thing you want to do is start with nothing. That's right, absolutely nothing. Picture yourself as an empty cup. Now, this doesn't mean forgetting your expertise or wisdom. It means creating space for something new. So, instead of, this sounds like an ideal client for my group program. Try, I'm going to listen as if I've never heard this before.

Speaker 1 6:58

Step two picture what is said. Picture what is said. So create a mental movie of exactly what your client, or whoever you're talking to, is describing, without adding your own plot twists. So, for example, if your client says I launched my course three times this year, don't add in your mind gee, that's a lot of work in a year. They must be tired. Just picture three specific launches happening over a year.

Speaker 1 7:28

Step three you want to ask information questions. You're looking for pure information. So it's a pure information gatherer, not disguised coaching questions. So, instead of well, how did that make you feel about your business? Try what were the specific results of each launch? Can you see one's very specific in terms of just asking for information? And the final step, step number four, is to seek clarification. You want to make sure you understand their actual words, not your interpretation of what they're saying. So, for example, instead of assuming you know what they mean by successful launch or good clients, ask when you say successful launch, what specifically does that mean to you? Remember, we're just fact gathering here, or information finding.

Speaker 1 8:22

Now, I still remember an exercise when I first started coaching, let's say decades ago, and I had two women entrepreneurs from very different backgrounds, and they both, though, had the same goal to increase their financial wealth. So I asked them both these were in separate sessions, by the way to write down what specific amount of money meant financial security, financial freedom and financial opulence. By the way, that's actually a really good exercise for everybody to do. If you're wanting to increase your financial wealth, you've got to know the numbers, and it's a nice way to know. Well, how much do you want for financial security, meaning that you feel safe with what you've got now how much do you want for financial freedom? What would that mean for you? And then what is the number that you need for financial opulence? Anyway, it was a really good excuse for me, as a new coach, to never assume anything with clients, because here's what happened. My first client said her financial security number was $250,000. Her financial freedom number was a million dollars and her financial opulence number was $ million dollars.

Speaker 1 9:35

Now my second client was what surprised me and gave me my biggest lessons on making incorrect assumptions. She had just paid over $10,000 to go through some training courses and coaching courses, so I had made assumptions about how she lived and what her financial status was, and her answers truly shocked me. Her number for financial security was $1,000. Now, admittedly, this is well over 10 years ago, but even so, financial security all she wanted was $1,000 to feel secure with her finances. The financial freedom number was $10,000. And her financial opulence number was $50,000. Cash in the bank. Now. I actually distinctly remember feeling a little shocked at how low the amounts were. So I asked more questions to get clarity about her answers, and what I discovered was that she actually lived a very simple life. She lived in a caravan by choice and was very minimalistic in everything she did, and she was incredibly happy with how she lived. So $50,000 for her was an immense amount of money for her at that time. Now it was a really good lesson for me in regards to not judging someone or assuming what they want or what they think.

Challenging Assumptions for Clear Communication

Speaker 1 10:56

All right, I want to have a little bit of fun with this. So I'm going to tell you another quick story about a coach's morning and I want you to notice what your brain does. So this is kind of now taking what we've just talked about and putting it into practicality right now, right here. No time like the present, right. So here we go. A coach starts her day with three client calls and by the last call she's feeling drained and notices she's not fully present. Let me ask you what did you picture? Did you assume the coach was a certain age or in a certain age bracket? Did you imagine a specific workspace that the coach was working from and even more probably prevalent? Did you create a reason in your mind for her feeling drained? If you did, we know this is your mental template library at work. Here's another example. Here we go.

Speaker 1 11:56

A person comes home after grocery shopping, drops their bags on the kitchen counter and sighs heavily while looking at their phone. Now notice what your brain automatically added. Did you assume their gender? Most people and I'm assuming here will assume the person is female. Did you picture a specific type of home? Was it an apartment? Was it a house? Was it a caravan? I probably will assume most of you didn't put her in a caravan. Did you imagine specific grocery bags? Were they reusable bags? Were they plastic bags? Were they paper bags? Did you create a reason for their sigh? Was it exhaustion, bad news on the phone, expensive grocery bill? Did you picture a specific time of day? Did you imagine what kind of groceries they bought? Did you assume they lived alone or with others?

Speaker 1 12:47

You can see how many questions when you really break it down, how many assumptions our brain automatically adds to the pictures based on the communication whether it's visual or verbal that we receive. We often project our own experiences. Maybe you pictured your own kitchen. We make assumptions about emotions and, you know, assume, maybe you assume that the sigh meant stress. We add context that wasn't given. Was it a specific time of day? Was it a living situation? And we often create backstories, for example, reasons for checking the phone. Can you see here how much our minds automatically fill in the details that weren't actually stated?

Speaker 1 13:32

Now I do have a caveat here. Filtering, generalizing and distorting information is not a bad thing. It's actually part of human nature and we do this to speed up our ability to process large amounts of information, the key on what this episode is all about is to be consciously aware that that's actually what we do, and there are most probably times our generalizations and filters may not be appropriate or correct. You know, if you're a coach, it's something to be really aware of, because we don't want to be putting our biases and our assumptions and our filters onto our clients' experiences of what they're going through. You know the client story I shared earlier about the 50k for financial opulence. She actually said to me at the end of our coaching term how much she appreciated I didn't judge her for the way she lived and I didn't try to change her or get her to set goals where she would change from living in her caravan. Now, during time together, we did uncover deep unconscious wounds and trauma, which were one of the main reasons she was still living the way that she was, but the transformation she made was she then consciously chose to live that way rather than feeling like it was her only choice. That was hugely empowering for me as a coach and obviously for her as a client as well.

Speaker 1 14:52

So this week I'm going to challenge you to try two exercises. The first exercise is called the empty cup. The next, time the phone rings, I want you to mentally empty your cup before you answer it. Mentally empty your cup before you answer it and, if you're a coach, before each client call, take 30 seconds to mentally empty your coaching template library. In other words, answer the phone with a clean slate and a fresh mind. The second exercise is called the mental movie, and this is about practicing auditing your mental movies and conversations, so it's a little bit more trickier. I want you to practice creating exact mental pictures of what the person you're communicating with is describing, without adding any interpretations. Now, I actually tried this for a whole day yesterday. Let me tell you it was quite let's just say amusing.

Speaker 1 16:00

Anyway, remember, the goal here isn't to become a blank slate. Your experience and expertise are truly valuable. The goal is to see what's actually there, not what we expect to see, because this is how we become truly extraordinary communicators and, if you are a coach, it's how we create trust with our clients, making them feel incredibly valued and heard. Now, speaking about that, I actually received a wonderful compliment this week where a listener wrote in and said how much she valued these episodes. Now, I know her personally and wasn't aware that she actually even listened to the show, so it actually meant a lot to me and, you know, really made a difference in my week. So that type of feedback is the fuel that encourages me to keep creating more episodes.

Speaker 1 16:46

So before I close off today, I've got one more challenge for you. I want you to think of the person who most needs to hear this episode, someone who could benefit from using this insight today. Now send them this episode link and say to them I challenge you to listen to this before the week is out, and then let's catch up and have a cup of after and let's see if they forward it to someone after that. Well, that's it for this week's episode. Until next week, stay curious, stay humble and keep practicing the art of truly hearing what people say.