An alumni listener recently asked for reminders and inspiration on attentive behavior, how to listen without judgment and how not be the ‘one-upper storyteller’. We are happy to talk about the topics our alumni need support with. Thank you for sending in an ask for an episode on being a Cheerful Communicator.
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Adam:
Hello, and welcome to the Our Community Listens podcast. With me today is Our Community Listens facilitator, Sarah Weisbarth. How are you doing today, Sarah?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Adam, I’m doing great. We actually are in the middle of facilitating a three-day class and we had a lot of great discussion today about reflective listening skills.
Adam:
Awesome. That’s good to hear and it’s nice to know that there’s more people going through the program every day.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah.
Adam:
So we had a listener ask us to talk about attentive behavior, listening without judgment and how not to be the one upper storyteller. Sarah, could you help us out with these a little bit?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Since we just facilitated this today, I feel like, yes, I definitely can, because these are the exact topics that we talked about today in class, but it is a lot to consider. I am super thrilled that we have listeners asking for help through our podcast.
Adam:
Absolutely. You can comment on our podcast episodes or message us on our Facebook page or contact us through ourcommunitylistens.org. We are happy to design episodes to address the thoughts and needs of our listeners. We also love to hear from alumni who are using Our Community Listens skills in their environments, and want to share their challenges and successes. We believe that listener involvement will make our podcast dynamic and relevant so we look forward to hearing from you.
All right, Sarah, that gave you a little bit more time to think about these big topics. What do you have for us?
Sarah Weisbarth:
All right. Let’s take them one at a time. Let’s start with attentive behavior. Remembering that attentive behavior is observable behaviors that indicate I am paying attention. So I’m actually doing something. I’m doing a behavior that indicate that I’m tuned in, I’m listening to you and I’m giving you my focus. Our first tip that we’re really going to share with you as an example of putting down the phone, turn it to silent, turn it upside down, don’t check it when it buzzes.
Adam:
I’m sorry. I was busy checking Facebook. Can you repeat that last little piece?
Sarah Weisbarth:
You have to stop looking at your phone, Adam. You have to pay attention to what people are saying around you.
Adam:
All right. So it sounds like a simple one, but you certainly see people that struggle with that and that they’re tied to their phone. I tried to stay off mine, but I pick it up even when I don’t have any purpose to look at it. There’s an actual name for that. It’s called phubbing. When we snub someone by paying attention to our phone and not paying attention to them.
Sarah Weisbarth:
We do this a lot and we don’t even really realize it. There’s a story that we share in class from an alumnus that she made it her goal to be off her phone for a half an hour every night when she got home from and she intentionally did this because she wanted to connect better with her teenage girls, which I think we could find almost ironic. We could potentially be judging the younger generation or teens to be the ones on their phones, but this alumnus decided she was going to model a behavior of putting her phone down and putting her focus on interacting with her girls and she has shared multiple times that there was an immediate change in the conversation and connection at home.
Adam:
That’s pretty awesome and I think it’s great you said something in there about modeling. I think it’s outstanding that she made the decision to do it herself first, before she started potentially bringing up issues or yelling at them to put theirs down. So make sure she’s doing it first to model good behavior.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah, really. I mean, truly, that’s our strongest tool when we want to change the behavior and interaction that we’re having with others is that if we model that behavior first, then they’re going to see it and hopefully start to model it back.
Adam:
So what else about attending behavior?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Some other examples of the actions or the behaviors that we can do, maybe flipping our laptops down when we’re working remote, turning the TV off, turning from our desk or computer, coming out from behind our desk, turning our desk phone on silent. I have to learn how to stop doing the dishes or even pause and making dinner at home so I can focus on my family. I know it’s important and we’re hungry. But if they really want to talk to me, I have to choose to say, “I can pause this for a moment,” and focus on them.
Making the eye contact, turning our body toward the person talking, leaning in. You can even acknowledge that they are talking by nodding your head, saying things like, “okay, mm-hmm (affirmative).” Basically, we have to choose to intentionally shift our presence and attention toward the other person.
Adam:
Sounds more like it’s not just actions or behaviors that we exhibit, that it’s almost an attitude inside that we have to change so the person knows we’re saying they are important to us. And I’m thinking that then they must feel that they are important.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. It’s really more than just the outward actions. And when we do the outward actions, we’re giving them our attention. That makes them feel special, like I’m important. You’re paying attention to me. But internally, we have to clear our mind of the to-do list. The item we’re working on, our own thoughts, our opinions about what they are telling us. We often use the example of taking an eraser to the white board of our minds and instead tuning into what the other person is saying, really internally valuing them as a person and what they have to say and indicating that value by our outward behavior.
Adam:
Okay. So some of those behaviors and outward behaviors sound relatively simple. You think you trigger yourself, put your phone down, close your laptop, make eye contact. But the idea about the whiteboard, cleaning everything off your mind, that’s difficult. That’s a hard thing to do.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yes. It’s a mental discipline of focusing in on what they are sharing. Some things you can start to write on the whiteboard instead is what they’re telling you. So instead of having my own thoughts and opinions about what they’re telling me, if I clear that space, then I can almost mentally collect the things that they’re sharing with me, what they’re actually telling me. Maybe I’m picking up on a nonverbal message and I want to note that, trying to catch a feeling, maybe a word that they’ve used to help identify what they’re feeling. So that then when they need me to respond to them, I have listened and collected their presence on my whiteboard and I can now convey that back to them. And all of this is going to help with that reflective response that we teach in reflective listening.
Adam:
So mentally tuning in, do the things that allow you to focus on them and you show that you are paying attention. And I also hear you have an attitude or presence making them more important than you in that moment.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. That really summarizes it, Adam. I just have to choose that they’re important to me and I’m going to tune in and I’m showing them that I’m tuned in.
Adam:
I think that could be pretty easy to start working on that. I know at the dinner table, it sounds bad, but I have my phone there a lot. I am conscious now of trying to put that either across the table, if I don’t want to get up and leave or making sure I don’t even bring it with me at the time.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. That’s a good role to start with, just maybe a simple behavior that you’re going to change.
Adam:
So how can this help me to listen without having judgment?
Sarah Weisbarth:
It’s an excellent start of maybe sitting aside our own opinion. If I’ve erased my whiteboard, if I’ve set aside my bias, my opinion, my thought, maybe that empathy blocker of I can’t believe they just said that, if I can erase that off of my whiteboard and tune into them, I have a much better chance of settling my own thoughts and setting all of that aside and in be in service to the other of their value.
It’s a hard one, Adam, just like truth in advertising. The sounds good. It feels good when we hear it. Wouldn’t it be nice if people listened to us in such a way that made us feel valued and that we’re important and we want to do that for other people, but it’s hard. We’re wired to assess the information that we collect from others when we hear from them. And then we often compare it to our own experiences, our own history, our own biases, viewpoints, and we take all of that and we form some sort of an opinion and we’re taught to judge situations and information. And almost by doing that, we’re essentially judging people and we do it without even thinking about it. We’re just really wired to be constantly assessing the information around us.
Adam:
Do you have an example that we could go through?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. Did you drive to work today?
Adam:
Yes, I did.
Sarah Weisbarth:
So here, we’re in Michigan. It’s winter. The roads are wet. It could be slippery from snow and possibly ice.
Adam:
Yeah.
Sarah Weisbarth:
How many people did you pass thinking they were being too cautious, that the roads were fine?
Adam:
Today, not too many because the roads were pretty good, but I know the situation you’re speaking of and certainly had that happen. Yes, I did assess that they were going too slow for my liking.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah, you assess that the roads are fine, but maybe they thought that they were slippery enough to drive slower, slower than you might have. It’s essentially a judgment call. You assess the information and you made a decision, just like they did, but there’s a different result.
Adam:
So fundamentally, I see what you’re illustrating here. But what about more personal examples?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Oh, so maybe like the career path someone takes or whether or not your nephew goes to college or the guy your sister is dating, not to mention any political or societal views discussed around the holiday table. Those kinds of judgements?
Adam:
Yeah. That’s a little more than what I had in mind. Those are more difficult for people to grasp onto and accept.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. There’s a lot of meat in there. Right? It’s so easy when we’re personally attached to the situation. We’re going to form those opinions more naturally based out of emotion, taking our viewpoint and our background and our experience and our bias. Invariably though, they’re going to be different than the people around us.
Adam:
How do we not judge when the topic is more pressing than the slippery road though? I mean, it’s difficult.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. Judgment is a slippery road to travel. I couldn’t resist.
Adam:
I can tell.
Sarah Weisbarth:
But seriously though, when we have an opinion and it is different than someone else’s, how do we listen through a lens of acceptance and not judgment? It can be hard. First, we have to decide that the relationship is important enough to work toward acceptance. This points back to the three moves slide. Misty Jenks talked about that on a previous episode, episode 10, the power of choice. We also have episodes talking about acceptance. It’s a struggle. We have to choose that the relationship is first important to us.
Adam:
So let’s say we’ve made that decision, that we have made that choice, the relationship is important.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. And we do have that choice. And so if we decided that the relationship is important enough to us, even if we don’t agree with them, we can confront. And we also talked about that on a previous episode. We can change a situation. It might not look like having the conversation. If I’m judging someone and I’m having a hard time hearing what they have to say, I might just have to excuse myself from the room or maybe learn how to keep my mouth shut, or maybe I can accept the choices that they’re making and stay out of that judgment.
This is really what we’re shooting for when we start to listen without judgment. And if listen, we’re actually going to fill our buckets or fill our knowledge base with more information that will help us understand that person better and maybe understand where they’re coming from with their choices that we’re potentially judging. And the empathy that we talk about, reflective listening, in reflective listening, is going to be so crucial here.
The more I think about this, it might just be a whole episode unto itself, because normally when we’re feeling strongly about what someone else is doing or saying, it’s because they have a different value than ours and it causes some sort of emotional reaction in us and we have to decide what to do about that reaction.
Adam:
And the whole time we’re trying to maintain a positive relationship.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah, of course. Seriously, if we ditched every relationship that we disagreed, when they made a choice that we didn’t like, then we would be friend and family less.
Adam:
Yeah.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. So of the three moves, if we’re going to try to accept that the other person has a different opinion or value than ours, I have to answer this question directly instead of philosophically. Okay. So we’re making that choice. I’m going to accept that they see things differently. I would say that the first step is to pause before response.
Adam:
Well, that’s a really smart idea, to take a moment and just be there and let it sink in and decide what you’re going to do.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. I have to reflect for a moment about my reaction. Why am I reacting this way? Empathize with what the other person is sharing and then use those reflective listening skills, set ourselves aside for that moment. Someone in class today actually said, “It requires us to set our ego aside and not serve our own need. And instead, focus on the other person.” That’s how I’m going to start practicing listening without judgment.
Adam:
That is definitely some really deep and good advice, but that is hard to do sometimes, depending on the topic.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah, it’s not easy. There’s so much strife in our society and our worldviews and even in our families and our friends. There’s so many opportunities to be in disagreement. So it really does have to be an intentional choice. We never have to say that you have to give up your belief, but you might have to let go of that desire or need to be right or convince the other person that you’re right. This is not only about what we say, but what we think. Judgment happens first in the thought in my head, before it comes out of my mouth as a judgmental statement or action. And so then overall, I would just have to encourage using the reflective listening skills, taking that pause and reflect before action. Choose your move, choose your move and make sure you’re using empathy.
Adam:
Those are some great suggestions, Sarah, thanks. And maybe we should explore this in a future episode even. It sounds like you have more you could share around that concept.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah, I really do. It comes up in class so much and we have developed continuous learning sessions around acceptance and empathy. These are really concrete skills and tools we can use. Sometimes I think people think we’re either born empathetically or some people might not be able to be empathetic, but we can actually practice the skills and move towards a place of acceptance and set judgment aside. But we have to choose to do that.
But for now, let’s move on. Let’s move on. What was the last item that we had?
Adam:
It was not being a [one upper 00:15:28]. And I can tell ya, I knew a guy in grade school that was a one upper. So if I, let’s say I got an A+ on the task, he somehow got an A++. He just did, every time. It’s just the way it was. And it may not be the perfect example for this, but I think everybody knows what I’m trying to say. You have a story, you finish it. And “Well, you never thought about doing it this way, did you? I always do it this way,” they have to say. So what about handling a one upper situation?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. This answer is really very much the same. We have to use those reflective listening skills. We have not talked about the silence much though. It’s similar to the whiteboard where we quiet our mind and our mouths as we focus in and give the other person our attention.
Adam:
So this is an interesting element for me, where we talk about being quiet and letting other people talk all the time. Because I often think, obviously, I helped create a podcast. I like to talk. So at times, I have something I want to say about me. I have something to say about a story I have. So I want to share that with the conversation.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Let’s clarify a few things. Okay. So first, when we discouraged telling stories, it is when someone has come to us with a problem or something that maybe they’re excited to share. When we tell a story or one up, we’re actually taking control of the conversation. We’re driving the conversation and making it be about us. When we do this, you can actually see people shut down or deflate, like their facial expression changes. Their shoulders will slump. They’ll possibly just stop talking and let you take the conversation wherever you wanted it to go. Even if you have a similar experience or their story sparks a thought about your own, again, you have to pause and stay silent.
So that’s when someone’s come to you, like they’ve got big news. Maybe they’ve gotten a new job. They’ve bought a house. They’re adding to their family. Maybe there’s a struggle or a problem they’re having and they just really need someone to listen to them. And if we jump in and say, “Oh, well, when I bought my house” or “Oh, two years ago when I got a new job,” it takes that conversation in a completely different direction and we have not served them by listening to them.
Adam:
What if we’re just out at the bar with friends, having a drink, dinner, and it’s just pretty casual, not too heavy conversation.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Absolutely. Right. These are those more relaxed conversations. Story sharing is pretty typical in those moments. Someone says something. It has us thinking about our own something and we share back and forth. I would still support, in those moments, that we choose to work through that communication cycle and reflectively respond two or three times before we shift the conversation to ourselves with our own relatable story. This is an area I am still working on.
Adam:
That’s fair.
Sarah Weisbarth:
You mentioned heading out to the bar, casual conversations with friends. This happens to me all the time. I’m having coffee with someone and I open the conversation with a great door opener to like, Oh, share what’s going on with you and tell me more about that. I pretty much think I’m rocking, being an amazing reflective listener, because it doesn’t take too long. And all of a sudden, I have steered this conversation my way. And about 45 minutes later, I have not stopped to consider if there was more the other person wanted to share. And I literally like almost pause and be like, “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry. I’ve been talking to all this time. Was there something else you wanted to share?”
And so slowing down, and in those moments, just kind of pausing and thinking, I need to have some give and take. This conversation should go back and forth and create connection. If I hijack the whole conversation, then that’s when I’ve shifted it to me. And it’s a one-up conversation, instead of a relationship building conversation.
I have started to practice and I wish you guys could see me right now, because Adam can see me clutching my hands because I have to learn to pause. And I talk with my hands a lot so I like literally clench my hands when I’m trying to pause and slow down. And if I use some of those behaviors that we talked about earlier, where I physically lean in and then I mentally and emotionally lean in and really hear what others are sharing, that’s when I can create that connection and respond to them before I shift to my own sharing.
Adam:
It’s interesting that they allowed two people who like to talk so much to start a podcast. Right?
Sarah Weisbarth:
Absolutely. We clearly have things we want to share with any listening ear.
Adam:
Anybody out there, feel free to tune in and tell us what you think. We want to know more. But, so I understand what you’re saying about this and this one feels like it’s an intentional consideration and takes practice. You have to think about giving that person space and slowing yourself down.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. It all does. It all does, Adam. Everything we talk about in class. Once again, today, I just finished up talking to our class about it takes practice, practice, and practice. And it’s not going to just like be a flip of a switch and change happens. Years of habits have designed how we have conversations. We’ve actually been taught to listen and have conversations in ways that are now kind of contrary to what we’re suggesting people do, if they want to create a connected relationship. And it does take that conscious choice to begin to apply the things that we’ve learned. And when we see the results over time, hopefully then we’ll be inspired or motivated to keep trying.
Adam:
Yeah. I believe there is serious value in doing this, taking the time to slow down. It only enriches the relationships we already have, and it only gives us opportunity to develop new ones with people that you never know what you’re going to get when you sit down to talk to somebody. Thanks, Sarah, for going through this today. I really appreciate it.
Sarah Weisbarth:
Yeah. I really enjoy talking about it. I’m, again, just pleased and excited that we have alumni that are sending in their thoughts and wanting to hear more about particular things. We have the opportunities with our continuous learning sessions and some of our other chapters are doing webinars that people can tune into about the topics. So we just have all kinds of opportunities to support our alumni and them sharing their thoughts and needs with our podcast is one of those.
Adam:
That’s awesome. So if you haven’t taken the opportunity yet, check out the new Our Community Listens website, and it is ourcommunitylistens.org. And if you want, feel free to contact us through our Facebook pages. And don’t forget alumni, you are the message.