In this episode we talk about listening skilz and how they can set us apart. How there are 10 diffrent types of filters to be aware of. You can reach Larry @ Larry@larrychatterton.com ... We learned to be aware of what you are saying and how you say it.
Find all our episodes by category on our website! https://adultingdecrypted.com/episode-search/
In this episode we talk about listening skilz and how they can set us apart. How there are 10 diffrent types of filters to be aware of. You can reach Larry @ Larry@larrychatterton.com ... We learned to be aware of what you are saying and how you say it.
Find all our episodes by category on our website! https://adultingdecrypted.com/episode-search/
Welcome to adulting decrypted. We're so excited today. We have Larry Chatterton with us. Larry, thanks for joining us. My pleasure. I just telling the kids year after Gideon was born. I'd started a company and went to Larry and Larry helped me in some of my communication skills Larry's a great teacher and has spent a lot of time in the training industry. So thank you for coming and spending some time with us tonight.
Larry:Yeah, I'm excited to do this. A little more of my background? Maybe, I don't know if I have credibility or not, but it might help. That's right. That's
Dad:one of the principles he tried to teach me is you got to establish credibility. So, thanks
Larry:for that.
Welcome to Adulting Decrypted. We are your hosts. I'm Gene, and I'm starting my first year of college. I'm Ashton. I'm a music performer, composer, and educator. I'm Dean, a high school senior. I'm Roscoe, the dad. Those are my three sons, and this is Adulting Decrypted, where we discuss ways to become adults and the things we need to know to be successful in life.
Larry:Well, you know but tonight as we talk about listening skills, I think those that teach are the ones that can't do it. So I always got into what I did because I wanted to learn it as well. And I was forced to be held accountable. So, communication skills and leadership skills So I got my start in probably 1997 with a course called the Dale Carnegie course. So if you're familiar with how to win friends, influence people and some of that, that's the Dale Carney course. And I first session of the class, I went, Oh, that's what I want to do and kind of set me on the right track. I was looking at going into health care and I had a small business with my parents, but I was helping them run. That might be a fun story for another day, but it was based 100 percent on the honor system. So it's kind of interesting to run, run that. But after going through Carnegie, I spent about 11 years there, three of those in Portugal, running Dale Carnegie over there, and delivering in Portuguese, and then came back and ran Utah for eight years, started my own speaking training coaching company, had a small stint with Associated Food Stores, a large grocery store conglomerate, and then, but since 2010, probably been out speaking and training around the world. So had to take a quick break in 2020 when the world said let's stop having live events, but we're back at it. I've you know, just got back from Vegas this last week and headed somewhere in Missouri in a couple weeks. And I was in Montreal a few weeks, early December. And so just trying to get back in the, in the swing of things. So, so am I
Dad:doing the math right, Larry? That's almost 27 years,
Larry:96 or? From the time I took the Dale Carnegie course till now, almost 28 years ago.
Dad:Wow. I didn't think
Larry:you're that old. No. Yeah. Well, we'd think I'd figure it out by now, but it happens. I still get myself in trouble. It happens to all
Dad:of us, doesn't it? Absolutely. A lot of years adulting. Ashton, I think you had a question before I cut you off.
Ashton:Someone like you and my dad are both a little bit more into the, the sphere you guys are in than, than we are. But if, if someone who doesn't know what you do at all. And you were going to adversize yourself in probably like a sentence or less. How
Gene:would you say you
Larry:do what you do? Well, when somebody says what I do, I always say I help organizations create a top notch customer and employee experience from the front line to the front office. And when they ask me how I do that, well, we come in, we identify specific needs and train leaders and team members on the front line to have great communication skills. And most of my work now is around customer service and leadership. So I've worked with clients like BMW, United Airlines, I spent 5 weeks in the Seychelles Islands, helping a 5 star resort open up there. I trained the staff at Madison Square Garden. I've been to Europe, trained a cruise line in the Mediterranean, so I've had some amazing fun projects.
Yeah.
Ashton:Totally. Cool. Thanks. Just.
Larry:Okay. I appreciate that. So yeah. And the name of my company, well, it's larrychatterton. com or Chatterton, Inc. But I have a philosophy I call the final three feet, F3F. So the final three feet. And actually how I named that company is a little to do with listening skills. I was out on a bike ride one day and I was listening to a book by a guy named Frank Luntz. He's a political does a lot of just research and stuff on politics and marketing. And he has a book called it's Words That Work. It's not what you say, it's what people hear. And so I was listening to this book and talk, kind of pondering this, like how, you know, it's not the words I use, but it's what people hear. And suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks. I'd been to a seminar and the president of the World Trade Center, Utah was speaking and somebody asking the question, why do you travel around the world and spend so much money to go to Brazil and China and all over to do these trade missions when you can do so much digitally now? And he just said, we do all we can digitally said, but what truly matters most are the final three feet or the human to human connection. And it just hit me because that's all that I've talked about is really connecting with people. And we can do it digitally now. We have a lot of resources like this where, you know, we can see each other. We cut out some of the communication skills through this, but it's one of what I'm going to talk about in a minute called filters. And, but we can overcome those, but as long as we connect with other people and make it feel personal, then then we can overcome those barriers.
Dad:I love that. The final three feet. Makes a lot of sense to me. And you said it will not, it's not what people, can you say that quote again?
Larry:So it says it's not what you say. It's what people hear. Oh, God, that's
Dad:powerful. And I love that. You love that. You're talking about connection as, we reach out to our listener. That's one of the big things that we hear back is how do I really connect with people? How do I get closer to people? You know, cause we are in the digital age and. A lot of the first interaction is digital and then we strive to get personal. So thank you. This
Larry:I'm excited. Well, and you know, if you look at it, you know, communication or listening isn't necessarily just about hearing words. It's about, or reading words, right? It's that understanding and what's the emotion behind it. What's the concerns, beliefs, the energy, the commitment, you know, there's so many factors and so many people think we listen with our ears. I told my son earlier, he's he's 20, he'll be 21 in a couple months and I said, Oh, I'm going to jump on a podcast and he's like, really, what are you talking about? And I told him listening is it? Oh, that's interesting. I'm listening to a book right now by Rick Rubin. You know, he's a sound producer. He's a produced some of the top acts in the world. And so Rick Rubin has an awesome book. It's called The Creative Act, A Way of Being. And it's really almost like, like verbal meditations. It's just kind of pondering his thoughts. And so I had him listen, or he pulled up and he said, Look, this was the chapter I listened to last night. I'm listening. So we sat there and listened to it together. And he had some fascinating thoughts. He says, if you think about it, you know, if you want to cut out like your sight, you know, you can close your eyes and kind of cut out some of the input there. Close your mouth, not taste things. Really? Your ears are one of the only in your nose, I guess, are one of the only things that has no lid on you're going to hear stuff here, you know, and it may be a survival for me, I know smell I pick up smells when I'm sleeping at night. I know exactly when, you know, the, my son's up cooking breakfast and I can smell it and that wakes me up. And I think that. That hearing and that smell are two of the senses that we kind of have to keep open all the time. Plus, you got to breathe, I guess. True. So, that was interesting he put that. And then, the other real interesting thing he said, and it's so simple, is listening is presence. And if you think about that, that is one of the things right now is the biggest challenge. We have so much input, so many distractions that we're not present. You know, have we trained ourselves to put that phone down and when you're actually talking to somebody or you're glancing down at it, you feel in the buzz, right? And all the other, somebody walks by and you look away and we're just not present with people. So you got to listen with your whole self. That's why all the senses come in. Have you ever been talking to somebody and they're telling you something but you're just picking up something around their body language or their energy level. You're saying, I don't know if that's the right, there's incongruency in that message, right? Maybe Roscoe remembers this. I used to talk about this incongruency when there was a politician giving a speech and he said, Our deficit is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And for those that can't see on Zoom listening, as I said, smaller and smaller, I actually spread my hands apart so it looked like I was catching the bigger fish each time. So, you know, when we see that incongruency or feel that incongruency, we're going to believe more, not the words we're hearing, but the way it's being said, the body language around it. And so that, those are so critical to listening skills. So having the ability to just be present. Be there with somebody.
Ashton:Are those, are those incongruencies generated by an individual not being present in what they're saying? Or is it, is it more subliminal messaging that, what causes that incongruency and why is something like that more important to pay attention to? I
Larry:guess it might depend on how in depth the topic is or what you're talking about. You know, if they know they're telling you something that's not true, they're gonna give off signals. In some way, you know, they're people that are masters of body language reading and my friend, Mike Worlton, he does micro facial expression reading where, you know, if your pupils dilate, when you say something, he'll pick up on it and it makes me uncomfortable to talk to him all the time because I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what to do with my hands when I'm talking to Mike. I don't know what signals I'm giving him. But I think as human beings, if we become genuine, the more genuine we are. And the more we're clear in our communication, what we're saying, but I think a lot of times it's it is just subtle. Differences either the way somebody saying something and if it's a blatant lie, it's going to be maybe a little more obvious or they practice really good to be a good actor. And they might just not feel the message themselves.
Dad:You know, Larry, I you, I do remember you teach me congruency between verbiage and body language. And it really helped me out when I was working with one of my clients and he was talking about getting together and. Working with somebody and he's pounding his fist to his to his other hand. He's like, we're just gonna get together We're gonna work on this and and I'm like wait so how do you work on something like that? And then he starts explaining and it was like he was pounding a fist. He goes, I'm going to tell her this and I'm going to tell her. I'm like, wait, wait, when we work together, we, we rarely tell somebody, you know, a lot of times we try and communicate and we, we spend time talking and I changed my handling, which to where I was interlocking my fingers. And we said, we need to get together and talk about these things, not tell her. And, and it was really helpful on watching that individual because it was very animated and very. And very much used his hand and, and he wasn't intentionally asked him to answer your question. He wasn't intentionally lying. I think he really, his communication style was broken and he was an old school manager that was going to tell them something. And, and to him that was working together, you know, versus saying, Hey, how do I really work with you? And how do I, how do I communicate with you? So I think it probably goes both ways. Some people practice it. I'm sure, you know, if I was trying to bluff you in poker and then I'd probably work on it different than if I truly I'm just having a heart to heart conversation
Larry:with you. Well, that's a great point because he might, he maybe was not even aware he was doing it. And it was just the body was expressing more of the truth or a part of the truth that he wasn't personally. That's why. Learning to be present just in all our life is such a valuable tool and one of the things I often talk to people because it's been such a huge value in my life is a daily practice of being present to me. That's meditation. I do several types of meditation. Every day where I find time to just clear my mind, just sit and be present. And so that I learned how to be able to do that when I, when, especially when the tips of chips are high and there's a lot of stuff going on, how to just be there in the moment during that. Are you practicing
Gideon:what's getting insane during that? Are you practicing like what you said earlier of like closing your eyes and your mouth and just being present that way or being present in mostly just your mind? And like, rather than the environment around you. I don't know if that
Larry:question makes sense. When I do my meditation I, the most common type of meditation I do is called TM or Transcendental Meditation. If you look that up, you'll see Jerry Seinfeld Arnold Schwarzenegger, I mean, there's some very famous people that have been doing it. Jerry's been doing it for 40 years since he started, and he's claimed that's one of the big reasons he's been able to keep such youthful appearance and longevity in what he does. In Transcendental Meditation, it sounds real strange, but really what it is, is taking on a mantra, which is a word that basically has no meaning. And there's actually a ceremony you go through with a Transcendental Meditation Instructor, it's interesting, but they give you this mantra, which is a word with no meaning, but you just repeat that in your mind, but you can do it with something as simple as peace, harmony, love, you know, whatever, you can pick a word and just kind of repeating your mind, it gives your monkey brain something to do. And then all of a sudden you realize you've got this story going on, your brain's gone somewhere. You don't have to worry about how to get it back, you just go back to the word. Just keep repeating it and work on that breath and do all that. I really like that. Driving, driving down the freeway, somebody cuts you off, you know, rather than respond, it's a moment. You can catch yourself and just deep breath. Okay, hey, I've cut people off before and did I have a good reason? Sometimes, did I not have a good reason? Yeah, a lot of times. You know, I would expect grace from them. I better get some out so I can earn some
Gene:and I really like that Because I know i've tried a different types of meditation a couple different times like a mindfulness app We're talking about like just like looking around and seeing all the different colors and shapes around you We're just like paying attention to all the sounds you hear And one of the things it mentioned was kind of like firmly, but gently bring your mind back to what you're supposed to be thinking about. And that was always so hard for me to understand, but like with that one word, it's, it's much easier than being like, okay, no, stop, stop thinking about that. Now start thinking about this. It's more of like, okay, I know I went off track, but this is the word. This is what I want to focus on. Instead of being like, hey, stop focusing on this. I like that.
Larry:And, and to me, it's, it's not so abrupt that I just shut it off. Like, Oh no, I'm on a story. Get back here. It's more like, Oh, I'm on a story show. You know, whatever you choose to use, you just kind of start saying the word and don't beat yourself up. But I think that goes into that listening with being present is many times somebody is talking and we're formulating our response. We're formulating the story we want to get back. And at that moment, it just kind of go, Oh. I'm not fully present. Let me get all the information here. Now I've got a bit of a story. I know where to go. Our brains are amazing things. They can think pretty quickly and, you know, pause for two or three seconds feels like eternity, but it's plenty of time for you to formulate a response. And, you know, we can, we can sometimes do a think on your feet session. If you remember that Roscoe from the session where you just simply asked her, what do I think? Why do I think that? What's an example of that? And then instead of Speaking what your, your opinion is, you actually start speaking with an example, a story or something like that, which in the end leads to what you're thinking, so. Maybe that's another session sometime. I'm
Dad:telling you, Larry, you reminded me of all this stuff. We could have you on every week and go over
Larry:communication. See, maybe I just better do my own.
Dad:Yeah, I think you're right. And then then you just have us on as different guests as guinea pigs and have us try out the different techniques that you're teaching, cause they are so valuable, Larry. They are powerful. Yeah. I, you know, the other thing you mentioned that we're formulating response, I've caught myself and I've had to tell my kids say. Oh, I'm, I'm sorry I was not paying attention. I was looking at a text, you know, I wasn't even formulating a response. You know, when my brain shifted, it, it left the whole conversation. And, and I think that presence is so important on listening and it's really hard to remember, but then your point of not beating yourself up, you're better off to own it and say, Hey guys, I, I'm sorry. I was gone for a second. Can you restate that? And then continue to work on your mindfulness and your presence. So
Larry:thank you for that. Well, also, what if somebody interrupts you, you're in the middle of a text or in the middle of something, somebody jumps in and they want to tell you something. I think it's totally appropriate. I've seen this happen. I, I was just in Costa Rica and saw some people doing this where they basically stopped the person. Would you hold on a minute? I want to give you 100 percent attention and I won't be able to do that unless I take care of this right now. Will you let me finish this text and then I will be fully present with you. Because I owe that to you, but when you set it up like that, who's going to say no, unless it's an emergency and you're telling me the building's on fire, you know, Oh, sure, you know, take your time. We'll take a minute and just take a second now say, and then let him know. Now I can be fully present. Now I can be here because, you know, this goes into one of the things I was talking about organized here is many times when we're listening, Things come up, which I call filters, and every time we communicate something, it goes through a different filter. And I've come up with about 10 filters that are most common, so maybe I can just run through these and we can chat about each one. When we look at the way filters impede our communication, because it can be done verbally, written, over video, there's a lot of different ways. So the first one I came up with was cultural filters. And these are differences in backgrounds of culture. You know, here we all grew up here in Utah, but different parts of the state, you know, maybe I've traveled more or somebody else has been in our country. But you see that where somebody grew up, their cultural filters come into play. And you might say something to use benign or doesn't matter, but because of their filter, it's going to amplify it or change the meaning of so just cultural filters. And some of you have been traveled before and seen that. Any thoughts around cultural filters?
Ashton:I've definitely seen the cultural filters because I spent, I spent some time in Australia and it was, there was a big learning curve there with the difference in how, like, Australians are generally regarded as a very blunt people, and it's fun and it's cool. It definitely took a second to get used to though. And it was like, I mean, it's a rather simple example. But then also like, the area that I was in was very much a melting pot. So you got cultures from America, Australia, New Zealand anywhere in Asia you know. Any islands in the surrounding area. So you got all those different cultures all in one place. And it was interesting to see how there was one understanding among most, not all, but among most people while trying to navigate those different cultural differences.
Larry:You know, and you think about responsibility in any communication, as the sender of a message, we have a responsibility to make sure it lands correctly, but as the receiver of a message, we also have the responsibility to make sure we understand it correct. And, you know, not being afraid to ask questions or, you know, say, yeah, does that word mean what I think it means? I've done a lot of work. I say I lived in Portugal for about six years of my life. I've gone to Brazil before and done some speaking and training down there. And I'm aware of some of the most common words that when you say them in Portugal, it doesn't mean anything bad, but you get to Brazil and you use the same word, it has a whole different meaning. We have the same with Britain and the U. S., right? So you've got to be aware of those. So it's interesting when you have those different languages, either you've got to take the responsibility to figure out what it is, or the minute you learn that, Responsibility being used. Yeah, that's
Dad:very powerful. It's not limited, I think just to nationalities, right? Sometimes it's cultures inside of a business, inside of, inside of families, inside of religious cultures, you know, where something might be accepted as a norm and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I didn't realize me, one of the big changes was he, she, they, them, you know, some of that culture around that and, and retraining and understanding. How to make people still feel important, heard and understood and validated. And I think that's part of that culture is, is saying, okay, I understand what you're saying or restating, like you said, as the hearer saying, okay, this is what I'm hearing. Is this correct? Am I hearing this correctly? And seek for that understanding.
Larry:That's why paraphrasing back is such a valuable communication tool in itself. You know, when we think of culture, you also got gestures and, you know, customs and value systems. So those are all coming to play and language. We might group it in with culture, but I have languages, a whole separate one, just because of. Jargon and technology terminology. I go in and out of companies all the time, and every one of them has their own acronyms, right? And some of them
Dad:probably repeat, right? You're like, wait, the acronym doesn't work. Yeah,
Larry:and you might get the same three letters, but they mean something completely different. Now we say there's, there's just too many TLA's in the, in the world. Those are three letter acronyms, T L A's.
Dad:Perfect, thank you. It took me a I was still trying to figure it out, as you can tell. And you read that in my body language with my expression probably.
Ashton:Well, and see, the problem for me is T L A means something
Larry:else. Exactly. Yep. That's a joke. That's the challenge. That's the challenge right there. I was really
Dad:hoping to find out what that is. Ashton's been teaching me some of the jargon for audio, and I still don't get it. I'm like, it's a C T R, and he goes, Dad, it's not a C T L. C T R. I'm horrible at acronyms.
Larry:Well, it's like I do a thing when I talk about body language about smiling and I just mentioned, Hey, you know, some of us have RBF. And you see half the room laugh because they know exactly what RBF means. And typically there's an age factor. And I'll just tell the older ones, I said, I'm not going to tell you what RBF means. You can go talk to HR or one of the younger people in the room and I'll let you know. Because it's it's not my place right now and I don't want to get in trouble. Alright, our next filter, the third one, we covered culture and language, kind of group them together. The third one is emotional filters. And that's just the state of mind. The person's in right there, they could be stressed. They could be angry. It could be super happy. Have you ever talked to somebody that's so happy that they can't focus and listen because they're just energetic. You know, maybe the players after the Super Bowl yesterday, one of them is a little more happy than the other. And some of them were probably to the point where they didn't hear much because of the happiness. You've got perceptions, just all those kind of things and responses that when somebody has emotion And that's usually where we get ourselves in trouble and that's the most important time to be present. What are your thoughts on emotional filters? I think
Gene:it's, it's very cool to think about it because I know I had one companion who was exactly what you're talking about. Like, well, it's one of the people I served with on my service mission. He was very happy all the time. No matter what, you know, like
Larry:super giddy and like
Gene:really excited. And like, it was just, sometimes it was Difficult to try to communicate and so I really like that it was brought up to like, hey, look sometimes It's different because i'm not always in the same state that that he is
Dad:And he
Gene:may not understand why I feel the way I do because he's been able to overcome it a different way than I have And so it's also the way that we, we cope with those emotions
Larry:when you see it with the families, they get home at night and you've all had different experiences in life that day. And 1 of you maybe had the best day ever. Another 1 has been home scrubbing toilets and not doing so well. And so you walk in all excited and ready to go. And they're like don't talk to me right now. I'm like, oh, okay. Got to understand the emotion going on before we communicate. All right. The next filter I have is psychological filters. Okay. Okay. Okay. Individual biases, beliefs, past experiences they shape how we interpret messages potentially leading to miscommunication or misunderstanding. Any thoughts on psychological?
Ashton:Well, I think, I think the bias ones is a big one. You know, I was, I was actually, Gideon and I were talking last night about communication a lot, actually. And one of the things we talked about was when I was on my service mission, I had a guy I was working with who Had a bias towards guys from Utah. He didn't, he didn't like their general filter fuel and their perspective. And so we started off in a place where. We just assumed we couldn't understand each other, and it took a while to, to work through that filter to make sure we got to a place where we could understand each other, and it, and it didn't, like, fix itself throughout the whole thing, but I think I learned a lot about understanding you know, biases and understanding that, hey, you know, those exist, and it's best, like, it's not necessarily necessarily You shouldn't be trying to break those biases down. You should learn how to work with them, I think. And work with, you know, where someone is.
Larry:Yeah. Well, I didn't mention this earlier, but I think under cultural too, and it kind of flows throughout, is you have gender that's a big filter that, you know, because we see things differently. You know, I remember my wife explaining to me that when she goes down to the grocery store in the evening, she asks somebody to walk her to her car. I don't think twice about it. I walk out and go to my car no matter what time it is, but there's a safety factor. You know, I didn't realize it until I had it well explained to me that there's a whole different mentality, you know, just so many different things with the. The way we, we inter interact as genders as well.
Dad:Yeah. I, I find this one very interesting because I've been married for 26 years and there's still biases that I've learned, you know, talking to, to mo your, your, your guys' mom, and I'm like, wait, hold on. Time out. Well, podcast hosts not, yeah, yeah. Not yours, Larry. I haven't talked to your mom. Yeah,
Larry:boys. I have a wife too, and I understand.
Dad:Thank you, You know, all of a sudden I'll, I'll say something and go. Wait, how, how, how have we been married this long? And I've never understood that that's a thing. I mean, I've shared the story with you guys many times about back when I had to pay for long distance calls and, and mom made a call and said, yeah, I called my brother and sister in law only talked for a little bit and I get this 25 bill and I'm like, what are you talking about? I make like 6 an hour. This is insane. You talked for an hour and 10 minutes. Yeah, it was just a short conversation. That is a forever conversation who could talk for an hour, Michelle was pretty well and said hey, let's just agree to disagree, you know So we still disagree on how long she can be on the phone call I'm like, are you gonna be on the phone call with you know It might be one of you guys you can be on the phone call with ash for a minute Yeah, for a little bit. I'm like, okay, I got it. I got to give her an hour, but, and then in her defense, I said, Hey, I just got to do something on the car real quick. And it's an hour and a half later, you know, so, so that bias is, is real either way. But
Larry:one of our stories I learned this early on is if I asked my wife, you know, she goes to Logan one day, two days a month to do massage. And one night I, on a Sunday night, I'm like, what time are you leaving for Logan tomorrow? And she proceeded to give me her schedule, like, oh, I've got this client at this time, and this at this time, and this at that, and I'm like, okay, right answer, wrong question. When you back out of the driveway and pull away from the house and look down at the clock in your car, what time will it say? And she's like, oh, 8. 30. I'm like, oh, okay, that's what I needed. So I had to take responsibility for that piece of communication.
Dad:I don't know, I think, I don't know, kids, if you guys caught on, say, yeah, I'm not explaining myself right. Instead, before I was getting mad at him, I'm like, why don't you understand me? And I'm, I'm, I'm realizing that it's some of it's me. I'm like, hold on. I'm not asking this, right. Cause I'm getting the wrong answer. And it's so, so I'll have to back up just like you did. I like that. Larry, when you back up,
Larry:that's closing that feedback loop. I like that. So psychological also I'm just gonna say about psychological, as you know, we've got people, we've got a friend that's on the spectrum. And so I know some of the communication we have. I have to be very careful. I explain stuff because they don't pick up on some nuances or subtleties. And so there's some elements there you have to pay attention to. My fifth one is semantic filters. So differences in interpretation of words, phrases, symbols, and they can lead to communication misinformation. Any thoughts on semantics? Tomato, tomah toe?
Ashton:Oh, it seems pretty straightforward to me, I think.
Larry:And you probably see this more, like, in, you know, Australia. They technically speak English, right? But there's some accent differences, and they use some different words. Yeah,
Dad:well, we
Ashton:had plenty, we had plenty of discussions about the pronunciation of, of Z or Zed or aluminum. Or aluminium, or caramel and caramel,
Dad:all that sort of stuff. I just remember you came home and you were swearing a lot more than when you left. Oh, that doesn't matter. These are just standard words over there, I don't know what, I don't know what your
Larry:problem is.
Dad:Is that fair? And I thought it was pretty funny. I'm like, wait, I sent you out on a church mission. You come home using words that only I use at the house. And I'm not really allowed to, cause mom gets mad, you know, and you're, you're throwing them around. I'm going, wait, I'm just joining my son now. It's okay. We're fine. We're talking
Larry:Australian. We're bonding. Yeah, that's right. Got to say it
Ashton:was a little bit of an accent to
Dad:make it. Okay. Oh, is that right? Oh, I, that was my problem, Larry, all these years, but I do think, sorry, if I could just real quick, I think that words and, and slogan and jargon is one thing that we have to be careful of, especially via, you know, digital communication. There's times like, I don't know what you just, those three letters meant, or that one thing, man, I might read it wrong. Right. Laugh out loud, you know, I get it because the first time somebody ever did that, they sent, they said, Hey, what, what import term is this? LOL. I see this on a paperwork. I'm like, I don't know, man, let me see the context. And then by breeding the entire email, I was like what they mean is that that was an error, LOL. It wasn't an error and it should be legal, you know, authorized something. I'm like, no, that literally means they're laughing out loud. And the guy's like, well, why would they use that? Why would they use
Larry:because they do. Well, and to your point there, this is where closing that final three feet and digital communication is so important is what, what's the wording? Do you stop and read back through a text to say how is this personalized? Is this person going to understand this? Like I'm meaning it. I'm great at deciphering text because I've done it my whole life. My family, everybody's just like shoot off a text. Okay. I can figure it out in context. My wife can't. Like literally, it might be one small misspelling of a word and it kind of throws her off completely. So I have to make sure I'm spelling correctly and using the right language and words to communicate that way. Alright, next filter is just noise. You know, you've been talking to somebody and there's a lot of noise going on. It's going to impact it. And, you know, if you think of different types of noise, you're not just got the volume of noise, but you've got stories going on in your head and that's creating kind of that static noise. You've got other conversations going on. You have. You know, you might be in the middle of that text conversation. Somebody comes up and wants to verbally communicate. Now you've got a little kind of noise going on in your head. So just making sure we're in the right environment, not being afraid to say, Hey, can we step over here? Do this another time when things are a little calmer and you know, kind of choose your where you're gonna communicate.
Dad:Yeah, Larry I think that's really strong is it's not that you don't communicate based on that noise But there's times you have to say hey, we need to call a timeout It was it was interesting the other night. The bull riding thing and I was trying to get to know somebody and we're talking mid conversation. Then all of a sudden the music comes on and they start doing the intro and he goes, look, I don't want to yell. And I said, yeah, it's not fair to get to know you this way, you know, and then we could sit and have short, brief conversations about what's going on, you know, in their arena. But we weren't going to have a, a bonding conversation about what do you do for work and how do you find meaning in that work? It was more like, well, did you see that guy just get, you know. Bucked off bull, you know, and so I like the messaging and the timing of the noise. That's powerful.
Larry:Well, it's good advice for those that might be dating right where you take your date to get to know him. You take him to a concert, you're probably not be able to chat very much. So you got to make sure you create that right environment to hold the conversation. I like you brought
Gene:up the type of noise because it's not always the loudness. Because sometimes there's a someone that's like. Really into, I grew, I know a lot of people that are into cars, and so like, if they hear like a certain type of engine go past, they're like,
Dad:oh,
Gene:that, that was a, that was a V eight. That was, that sounded really cool. I'm like,
Dad:it was just another car.
Gene:But that's what their ear catches up with. Like that's something that
Dad:catches their filter more
Gene:than the conversation that they're having. So I, I like that you bring up the type of noise
Larry:as well. And sometimes I forget, I have the ability, I think, to close out noise and focus. Just the other night my parents stopped by our house. We're sitting there talking, I'd started the dishwasher. And as we're sitting there talking, I didn't even hear it, I'm just involved in the conversation. My wife's like can you shut that off? And she can get distracted really easy. If we go to an event and there's a speaker and somebody's talking two rows behind us, she'll literally stand up and ask them to please keep it down. Because once she picks up on that noise, it's distracting. She won't focus. So she, you know, has to work through that. And so to me, I'm, again, it was another filter. I was unaware because I didn't have that problem.
Dad:You know, it's interesting for me as well as as speaking Chinese when I was first involved in it, you know, and just freshly back, I could understand conversations and ease drop easy. And now if I'm not part of the main conversation, I'm done, you know, and it's so interesting to me that, that, that, that background noise and that interruptions. How that changes over time as well, right? So it's not just it's not just hey, the dishwasher is annoying today But in six weeks, it could be something else, you know, Michelle can tune out the dog pretty dang good I don't know if you guys know that but Yoda come barking she like I didn't even hear him and I'm like the first time He whimpers. I'm like, I'm gonna go down and kill him. He's done You know, so
Gideon:yeah I think an interesting point. I'm not sure if this is something you'll bring up later But visual noise as well. My brain just went to, like, teachers. Especially my seminary teacher. He's a person who's like, Guys, you can't be on your phone, cause that's just gonna distract me. Like, he'll just have to stop. He's like, Guys, I lost my train of thought. Cause I saw you guys doing something. Can you stop? Or, like, Do something else. So I don't know if that's a different point, but that
Ashton:that's interesting. Well, as someone who does teaching, like it's so true. Cause normally you think that teachers are telling you just to get off their phone off your phone because they, they, they have a superiority complex, but it's really like, all of a sudden your brain is like, am I not being engaging enough right now? And all of a sudden, everything you were talking about is just gone with the wind. So that's definitely a thing.
Larry:Well, and getting you kind of picked up the next one is technological filters. And if you've ever been on a zoom meeting and you're distracted, you got another window open. You're doing stuff. Maybe somebody's got something going on on their screen and you're not paying attention to that and their background and not the person talking. So you do have that visual noise that happens quite a bit. And that's, that's why limiting those as much as you can, like say, we all put our phones on silent before we started, not just for the sound quality, but hopefully you don't get some distraction as well.
Dad:Yeah, I think technology is, is a hard one because it goes back to your meditation earlier. Even that conversation, I was thinking, man, so many times I have my earbuds and even now outside when normally I wouldn't have had any technology. I wouldn't have had a phone song with this with a friend of mine the other day says, used to be out in the nature. You're out in the nature. You know, you pulled out the headphones, you, you were there, and now you can throw in an audible book and, which is great, right? Larry, you ride street bike. Yeah, a road bike you know, on what, a couple hundred a hundred mile rides and stuff like that,
Larry:I'd imagine. And it's been a while since I've done that, but, but I always have my headphones in listening to books. Yeah. I'm driving around, I'm at the gym, podcasts, books. I've just constantly got
Dad:stuff going on. Yeah. And so, so, and, and, and it makes that more enjoyable. Without that, you'd be like, Hey, wait, hold on. This is just monotonous. And, but then there's also times you have to unplug and say, okay, I'm just here to be here. And I think that's hard for technology. I told my kids right before we sat down, I said, oh, I've got to close this screen because it was a big project that I'm working on outside of adulting decrypted that has nothing to do with it. And if it was even up anywhere near me, my brain would keep looking back at it. Cause it's something I need to get done tonight. And so I just had to shut it off and say. To be present, I have to kill that technology. I have to turn it off. Ashton, you do something at night with your phone. I know because I've texted you. Oh, yeah. I just,
Ashton:I have it. I have an iPhone and I have the setting turned on where it has a focus mode of sleep. And so, anytime past 9. 30, I don't get pinged for notifications. I can still check, but they don't come through.
Larry:Yeah, that's discipline. That's good to have. It's good to be in that. Yeah, sometimes, you know, as a speaker, I know people are gonna be on their phones while I'm speaking. And sometimes I've just learned to not take a personal. Sometimes I like, oh, there might be fact checking me on what I just said right there. And other times in the beginning, I've said, look. I know you're all going to get a message and you feel you need to respond to it, well, respond quickly and come back to me, because, you know, if you're sitting there thinking about it the whole time, then I've lost you for longer, so just take care of it and get it over with and come back to me, and we'll keep going. So let me wrap up these last three. We've got perceptual filters, variance in perceptions, including differences in sensory abilities and cognitive processing, and affect how information is received and understood. I have a great friend. This guy is brilliant. Top of his class, Harvard law. He processes information. A little more methodical than I do, or as I might blurt out a quick response and wish I'd kept my mouth shut, he just keeps quiet and then all of a sudden I'll be on to a new topic and he'll answer the previous one and I've had to learn to slow down when him and I are talking because he's just so brilliant and I want to capture everything he says, but I'll make sure when I ask a question, I let silence be there. I let it because he's processing the information to give me a good answer. So I've had to learn to work with that. I
Dad:like that one. I like that one a lot because that silence has been so hard for me. I'm like you, Larry, as soon as it goes quiet, I think I got to fill the noise or fill that space with noise. And I think that setting and letting, especially when you're asking a real thought provoking question, sometimes people don't even realize it's coming, right? So you have to ask the question, then stop and wait.
Larry:Yeah. Well, even now, and I mean, because we're on audio support a podcast, all of us are conscious of any silence where, although there's some science, you better feel it, right? Because I don't want to lose somebody on that that brief moment. And I don't know if you had those. Editing capabilities, but we're all aware of it, but it's the medium we're in and we're, we're adapting to that. So, yeah,
Dad:and I have, and I have shrunk those which I thought it was good to leave silence in it. And I'm like, Nope, got to shrink those to half a second instead of three or four seconds. And, and, and because you're right, we're, and I don't know, you're probably the same as I am. We listened to those a little bit faster. And so a dead space makes you think, Oh, did it, did my phone die?
Larry:Exactly. I've done that. Yeah. So the next filter is a personal filter, personal biases, preconceptions, selective attention may filter out certain information or influence how it's interpreted. Just your own life experience. What's going on in your life and the challenges you're facing and you know, somebody might say something and because of the challenge You're going through you're gonna take completely different than they mean it or something like that. So just your own personality personal perceptions
Dad:Larry and I want to talk about this One of my goals is to help generations bond here, right? This is for parents to open up communication with their children and children with their parents. You know, it's so hard for me to step back and realize that, that Ashton and I are 25 years apart, which in reality feels like very little to me, I'm like, Oh man, I was just there. I remember what that was like. And to him, that's a big gap. He's looking at me going, man, 50, that feels like forever. And so acknowledging that and understanding that there's a gap there and that we've seen different things and we. You know, we grew up totally different, Gideon and I probably even more so as far as when he got technology, when I got technology and what technology was right. TI, Texas Instrument, DOS prompts versus open it up and GUI interfaces. And you know, do you guys even know what a DOS prompt is? Nope. Okay, there you go. See, so that's what's running your computer the whole time. You don't even realize it, but that's fine. So now I felt smart for a second, Larry, but I really don't know much about technology.
Gene:When you bring it up, it reminds me of a
Larry:conversation
Gene:I remember us having where we're like, well, when did you get your first phone? Cause, cause we're all seeing the, the. Our peers getting phones and we're like
Larry:dad,
Gene:when did you get your first phone? I bet you got it in junior high high school And you're like I didn't get one until like after I was married
Larry:and like had a full time job And so it's
Dad:just those things like we grow
Gene:up differently
Larry:I was 27 years old and I was paying 25 cents a minute on any call, so incoming or outgoing and it was the big brick that I had to pack around two batteries with me
Dad:and, yeah. And there was no such thing as text. A text was a 9 1 1 on a pager. You know, call me back. Just a
Larry:phone. Alright, my last one I have here is interpersonal filters. That's your relationship dynamics, power differentials, trust issues between communicators. And it can often lead to clarity and effectiveness of communication. So when somebody has a title, I've seen people react differently when somebody has a boss title or a CEO or a manager bottle title compared to something else. So just how long you've known each other. You see people changing communication when they bump into an old buddy from high school, those of us that were there a long time ago, and you kind of revert back some of your language you use and the way you spoke and then, you know, changes. So just, and sometimes those people change, so they're grown out of that and you got to adapt back to that. But those interpersonal
Ashton:films. Yeah, there's a, there's like a meme that was popular in my age group, or is, of like, when you accidentally use personality A with group B, sort of stuff, and then you realize, oops, I've gotta switch back to this other joke system, or these people didn't get that reference, sort of stuff. It's, yeah, having to switch based off what area you're in, I think
Larry:is important. Well, you know, and Stephen Covey made the famous quote, you know, most people don't listen to understand. They listen to respond. And as Roscoe knows, I always want to throw down a challenge and something I'm working on this week myself. So I'm going to invite y'all to join me, but I'm working on my listening skills. I'm really kind of, am I present, am I truly listening to this person, to what's going on? You know, lucky on podcast you can rewind when I realize my mind's been distracted, but you can't normally do that in a live conversation, so trying to get rid of a lot of these filters I can, but just consciously being present in the moment, and just do it for a week. Make it a conscious effort, and then it becomes unconsciously
Dad:competent. Unconsciously competent. I like that, Larry. Larry, you gave us a lot to think on. Larry, you've got some new things coming down the chute. I'd like you to plug yourself and, and tell people where they can find you and what you've got going on with your men's group and some of the other exciting things you have going.
Larry:I appreciate that. This has been great. And I've had a real great experience of a couple of months ago down in Costa Rica. And I had a real epiphany that, you know, men particularly don't necessarily have a place to kind of connect and bond. So I've got a new men's coaching program. It's called Connect and Grow. We're going to do four different programs. Group sessions over zoom every other week, and then the week between we'll have a one on one personal coaching session for the people that are in it. Hopefully, we're gonna have about 10 participants. I've got a few come from all over the country right now, so we're hoping to pull those all together. So it'll be a two month program. You can reach out to me at Larry at Larry Chatterton. Chatterton is just like it sounds. C. H. A. T. T. E. R. T. O. N. com. So Larry at Larry Chatterton. com and love to hear from people. And even if it's been a while and you're listening to this podcast months down the road, reach out anyways, cause I'm hoping this is the first of many of these programs I'm going to do. Then got some speaking gigs coming up around the world, and just looking forward to those.
Dad:Larry, thank you so much, and those will all be in the show notes so people can also refer to those in our show notes.
Ashton:For sharing those thoughts with us. You've given, me at least, some, some things to think about. Communication is a big question for me a lot of the time, and so it'll be fun to, to try and apply some, some lessons learned.
Larry:Thank you, Ashton. So the challenge is to consciously work on your listening this week. Be totally present in conversations and make sure that you, for one week, make listening a priority.
Gideon:Thank you so much, Larry. It's been awesome. And of course, we would love to hear how you guys have listened and had your experiences and anything funny. So you can reach out to us on any of our social medias, Instagram, Facebook, at Adults Undecrypted. We have a Reddit. That's always fun. We can chat. So always reach out and thank