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Podcast Episode 065: Listen like World Memory Champion Dr Boris Konrad

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Do you struggle with your memory when you are listening? Our research says, that your memory is one of the top five reasons why people struggle with their listening. Rather than listening, you are trying to remember the name of the speaker or what they just explained.

Dr Boris Konrad is well qualified to discuss this topic as a neuroscientist and a four-time Guinness World Record holder and an eight-time world champion in memory. You will learn practical tips to improve our memory while you listen.

Boris demystifies the relationship between your mind and it stores what’s being communicated. He shares the techniques he uses to recall the order of an entire deck of cards and how he never forgets someone’s name, even when he hasn’t met the person yet.

Learn how to take notes in the most effective way to retain information, and how to use visual images in your mind to store and recall when you are listening.

Transcript

Podcast Episode 065: Listen like World Memory Champion Dr Boris Konrad

Boris Konrad:
I know a teacher who was once in my seminar, and he at the beginning told quite openly, “Well, I’m always a teacher in my school everyone laughs at because at Christmas I still don’t know the names of all the kids in my class, and that’s really not okay. I really want to change that and people think I’m not interested in my students. It’s just not it, I just can’t remember their names.” And we changed his message and I also gave the address, “Well next time you have a new class, probably at the first lesson you always do a picture, take this picture home. Takes a list of the names home and spend some time at home to come up with the images, linking it to the kids.”

Boris Konrad:
And just less than two years later he got back to me, he told me, “Well Boris, from the one who always didn’t know a single name, I went to the only one who knows the names of all 900 kids in our school. Because what I do now is, since I like to do photography anyway, I will always take at the beginning of the year the photos of all classes, gets the people to write their names underneath it, and I’m now the only teacher in the school who knows all students’ names, nearly a thousand people.” Was exactly this message.

Oscar Trimboli:
Deep Listening impact beyond words. Hi, I’m Oscar Trimboli and this is the Deep Listening podcast series, designed to move you from an unconscious listener to a deep and productive listener. Did you know you spend 55% of your day listening? Yet only 2% of us have had any listening training whatsoever. Frustration, misunderstanding, wasted time and opportunity, along with creating poor relationships are just some of the costs of not listening. Each episode of the series is designed to provide you with practical, actionable, and impactful tips to move you through the five levels of listening. So invite you to visit oscartrimboli.com/Facebook to learn about the five levels of listening and how others are making an impact beyond words.

Oscar Trimboli:
In the Deep Listening research group, one of the top five struggles when it comes to listening is people struggling with their memory. Rather than listening to what the speaker is saying, they are trying to remember the speaker’s name, or they’re trying to remember what the speaker just said. Imagine if you could speak to a seven time world memory champion and they happened to be a neuroscientist. Dr. Boris will provide for us today some practical tips around utilising visual images to improve our memory when it comes to listening. And just as important, he’ll explain the science of what’s happening in the brain while you’re listening.

Boris Konrad:
The kind of techniques I teach and use is to syncing images to make up associations in your mind. Because your memory actually is great, but when someone is talking to you, the words itself don’t engrave themself in your memory. But you can do something with them by turning them into images. So you can do that quite strategically and definitely leave when I am listening for example to a presentation, it’s something I always do. That I, for maybe every minute or two spoken find an idea that’s currently presented, find something that’s currently discussed, turn it into an image and then I place it somewhere in the room. It’s related to a technique called the method of loci. At least that is how we call it in research.

Boris Konrad:
In popular press, you nowadays quite often hear about the mind palace by Sherlock or memory palace, which more or less refer to the same idea. That any memory that’s attached to location is a much stronger memory than one without. And then memory with an image is much stronger than just a verbal one. So to catch and remember, even the very long presentation, an hour long presentation, an hour long podcast I’m listening to. Every minute or two, I try to make an image that’s associated with one of my locations.

Oscar Trimboli:
Not only are you a world expert, world champion in memory, but you’re also a neuroscientist. So talk us through the science of what’s getting coded in the mind when we’re placing these images in the mind palaces around the room. And maybe talk about the kind of graphical images you’re plotting while you’re listening to me.

Boris Konrad:
In our research we try to understand why is this techniques aren’t working. It seems somewhat counter intuitive that you can learn to think differently and something changes your memory and makes it better at the end. You might assume, well shouldn’t my memory be optimal by nature? And it turns out, no it’s not you can do something about it. That’s surprising to many people. So you wanted to know is, do you have to have any gift to be able to do that? Do you have to have any special brains? For example, we scanned the brains of about 30 memory athletes, people who compete in memory competitions. It turns out their brains are not special at all, so it’s actually about the way they are using their brains. They are using their memory.

Boris Konrad:
We have very different memories systems in us so to say. And they work on different of the brain as well. And kind of everything we experience comes in through our senses of course. What we hear, still of course also what we see, and also what we taste and so on. Just a very smart part of this information coming into the senses is actually picked up by our working memory, by our attention. And then again just a small part of that goes through to long-term memory being actually encoded in our brains.

Boris Konrad:
And what this idea of making up an image do is to use the brain in a bit different way, to use the memory in a way it’s kind of meant to be used. If you see where we as humans are coming from, it was always important to remember how something looks that you maybe can eat or maybe some plants that’s poisonous you shouldn’t touch. Or to where do I find protection and where maybe do I find food, but where shouldn’t I go either. So these kind of informations are extremely important historically for humans, and that’s why our brain is really good in picking them up.

Oscar Trimboli:
Humans have much more developed visual minds compared to our speaking minds, or out listening minds. Dr. Boris will explain that humans have only learned to speak and listen in the last 10% of their time on this planet. Evolution’s an amazing thing.

Boris Konrad:
So what I’m speaking, in particularly complex modern speech is way more modern than you might think. People studying the history of humankind estimates that we have 200 to 300,000 years of our kind of the modern human homo sapiens. But it’s only 30,000 years that he actually has a complex speech. Our brain kind of in terms of evolution is just picking up in being able to speak, yet alone to remember it. So turning speech, turning textual information into something our brain can actually store easily, which is an image. This is something associated makes it much easier.

Boris Konrad:
To run it up a little bit from our science, what we do see at the end, all the same people who do train their memories is a change in connectivity. It is a change on how different parts of the brain speak to each other and listen to each other, which changes by these kind of techniques, in particular if you trains them for a while. And this is kind of interesting, because we don’t really change the brain itself with this techniques, with this training, but the way communication within the brain happens.

Oscar Trimboli:
Do you have any tips or techniques you would give people to help remember that name when you’re greeting somebody at an event, a seminar, a dinner party?
It’s the first time you’ve met them.

Boris Konrad:
The moment I hear a name I try to find an image related to is that name. That can be different things. It can be something verbal. It can be another person with the same name. Just the first association I have. For Oscar I would think of a price you win at the Academy Awards when you’re a successful actor. So I would picture you holding this Oscar prize award trophy in your hand. And if make a clear picture of that, it’s very strong. Because if you actually greeted me or welcomed me, showing me your Oscar you won, I would remember that for sure.

Boris Konrad:
But if I just make it up in my mind, I remember it the same way. And when I see your back, I’ll remember, “Wait, he was the one with the Oscar.” Now, he is Oscar. “Hey Oscar, welcome. I’m so happy to talk to you today.” And I can do the same with of course more difficult names, with foreign names where I maybe need to add an extra image.

Oscar Trimboli:
Now, coming up is a great tip on how to remember people’s names in advance of meeting them. Even if you don’t know what they look like, even if you don’t know what their faces are shaped like. This is a great tip for anybody who’s a trainer or a teacher or somebody who has to know in advance a list of people that they’re going to meet. Maybe you’re a salesperson or a real estate agent.

Boris Konrad:
Also use the chance to prepare, because quite often you know who you’re going to meet. You don’t know their face yet, you did see them yet, but you know which names will come across. Who are the other participants in the workshop for example, and then you can prepare the images. And then you can already expect to use these images, you’re kind of happy while I finally get the chance to apply the image I made up to the person I’m meeting now. And it’s a really strong strategy.

Boris Konrad:
I know a teacher who was once in my seminar and he at the beginning told quite openly, “Well, I’m always a teacher in my school everyone laughs at because at Christmas I still don’t know the names of all of the kids in my class and that’s really not okay. I really want to change that and people think I’m not interested in my students. It’s just not it, I just can’t remember their names.”

Boris Konrad:
And we changed his message and I also gave the address, “Well next time you have a new class, probably at the first lesson you always do a picture. Takes this picture home, takes a list of the names home, and spend some time at home to come up with the images, linking it to the kids.” And just less than two years later he got back to me and told me, “Well Boris, from the one who always didn’t know a single name, I went to the only one who knows the names of all 900 kids in our school. Because what I do now is, because I like to do photography anyway. I will always take at the beginning of the year the photos of all classes, get some people to write their names underneath it and I’m now the only teacher in the school who knows all the students’ names, nearly a thousand people.” Was exactly this message.

Oscar Trimboli:
I guess the joy of having you on this podcast is that not only are you the world champion, but you’re also a neuroscientist, so I’d love you to talk us through the neuroscience and I noticed you did this earlier on. When you greet somebody, you actually say their name, so if you met me you would have said, “Hi Oscar, great to meet you.” What’s the science of what’s happening inside the person’s mind when they’re audibly saying the person’s name?

Boris Konrad:
We have a different memory on different timescales and everyone speaks about short-term and long-term memory. But I guess the concept in most people’s minds differ from how we see it as a scientist. And short-term memory, which is highly linked to working memory is very short term actually. It’s not hours, it’s just minutes and it has a very limited capacity. By using the name, I make sure it’s getting activated in my short-term and working memory. So I have it at hand at least for a little while, and then working memory is maybe a storage. It’s a bit weird concept for some people. Even if you look up the word memory in a dictionary, it will say the place of storage, but we don’t have that in our brain. We have a hard drive in the computer, but not in our brain. Memory is the function, not the place of our brain.

Boris Konrad:
So by getting the name activated in my short-term memory, I should link it, we call it a chunk. It’s a chunk of information. I link it to the representation which was the name Oscar I already had in my long-term memory. So it’s already getting activated in long-term memory. And now it’s much easier for my brain to deal with it and then also afterwards to make a new memory out of it that I will remember your name even over long term, even after hopefully weeks, months, years to come.

Oscar Trimboli:
Just like listening, it’s easy to do and hard to practise. When you meet someone to say their name immediately upon that introduction, “Great to meet you Jane. Nice to meet you Mary. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you Luke.” Memory isn’t fixed. In fact, memory is variable. Memory also wears out. We’ll learn about recall shortly. But if you want to explore the topic of memory not being fixed or memory fading, Malcolm Gladwell has a great podcast called Revisionist History, and he’s done two episodes on memory. The first one called, A Polite Word for Liar, and the second one, Free Brian Williams. Boris takes us through this concept of changing invariable pathways in the brain and contrast it to the way that people generally think about memory. They think about it as computer storage, and in fact it’s not. So I’m curious then, memory isn’t static by the sounds of it. It sounds like memory’s kind of impermanent, electronic, maybe even chemical. What happens in memory, because as you said, it’s not a hard disc. How is it stored?

Boris Konrad:
Short-term memory actually is really like this biochemical level. We’re just changing some neurotransmitters. We’re not changing anything in the brain itself. Of course, the main form of long-term learning is that existing neurons in the brain try to differently connect. A single neuron can easily be connected with thousands of other neurons and these connections are typical called by synapses, so you have the synapses connecting neurons.

Boris Konrad:
But people see it like a on off thing. They see it in bits as in a computer, it’s on or off. But a synapse is not like a plug you plug in or out, but it can have again hundreds of thousands of little points connecting to it. And when a synapse get activated, this connection gets stronger. We’d like to use images as memory people. So a typical metaphor, it’s a street thing. So every new connection might be like a little footpath through the woods, which can also easily be grown over by all the trees and plants.

Boris Konrad:
But if you use it again and again, some long while later you have a highway and that will need a long while until something grows over it. So these connections change every single time you use them, and you said that correctly. And that shows that memory is not like in a computer something you can just get back, get access to. But every single time you remember something you also change it. In the case of the name of course it doesn’t mean you forget to name every time.

Boris Konrad:
But more strongly, if you for example think back of a meeting you had a while ago, or maybe your last vacation. If you remember these kinds of things, because you’re in a different state now. You have different memories, you have different things you’re thinking of, this changes actually the memory of your vacation and it’s never an exact story anymore.

Oscar Trimboli:
In the workplace a lot of debate exists about when you’re listening to somebody and you’re taking notes about what that person is saying is, is note-taking distracting and taking away from your ability to stay present, focused and not distracted? Or is it aiding longer term memory?

Boris Konrad:
Students tend to ask me that question quite often and I try to do a bit of research and my take from it is that I think it depends on how you do it. It was the way too many students like to do it and also probably in the workplace people tend to do it is to write down way too much. It’s like stenography. You try to capture all the words, which gets very distracting because you do fall behind, because you’re not a stenographer.

Boris Konrad:
If you make very single notes of just important ideas mentioned, single words, maybe just a line to associate two topics that were related, it can guide your memory afterwards. But when you focus again on the writing instead of the listening of you of course you tend to lose track and the notes will not help you to recapture that. So a very pointy kind of note-taking, just single words can be very helpful, because it guides you. You make yourself do it every minute or two, just one word, you kind of force yourself to listen by that way.

Boris Konrad:
But the way people tend to make too many notes can be distracted. I tend not to take any notes on paper, because I takes them in my mind and making these images. But I can have the same problem. If I try to remember any of the every word or every sentence the speaker said, I can also fall behind. So that won’t save me from that just because I do it in my head sadly.

Boris Konrad:
I just might look a little more attentive, because I don’t look down on my notes but still look up, but of course you can be the same distracted. So in my head that’s what I said at the beginning, every two minutes, one image. That’s good enough that afterwards I can nearly recapture the whole talk, but still listened to it really carefully if I wanted to of course.

Oscar Trimboli:
And for most people in the workplace, the most common thing I notice is that their note taking is more frequent than they’re engaging visually and listening fully. I’m curious with your background in neuroscience, what’s actually happening inside the mind, what’s being shut down and turned off as it relates to listening when people are writing and engaging in the process of taking down the information on paper or electronically? What’s happening to their ability to engage both visually and auditory in the mind?

Boris Konrad:
It again links a lot to this concept of working memory we have. Where maybe many people have heard about this idea of seven plus or minus two information you can have in your working memory. And if you’re really attentive, all this information will be coming from the stream of information given to you by a speaker, someone speaking to you. But looking elsewhere, like being focused on holding your pen, writing in a way that you can still read it afterwards. Checking if there’s still enough room on the page. This will take some of these chunks away. It will take some off the space away in your working memory. So the capacity you have to listen to take in information giving to you decreases. Because one or two, maybe even more of this very limited chunks you have gets blocked by that way.

Boris Konrad:
Total different concept that we also have of course is that we have for example the thalamus part of our limbic system which is also linked to emotions for example, which is just highly filtering all the essential information we get in. And in this region, I’m simplifying now, gets the idea, well the note taking is actually relevant right now and not the speaker. He will filter, it will filter. Not sure if it’s male. It will filter more of the auditory information than you wanted, so it doesn’t even reach your working memory anymore.

Oscar Trimboli:
In summary, take notes, or make an image every three to five minutes. Avoid taking word for word or verbatim notes, as this reduces the amount of working memory the mind has available to focus on listening. When people meet me they’re really surprised how few notes I take during their conversation, and sometimes it can even become an issue. Because the people are assuming that I don’t care what they’re saying because I haven’t taken the time to write anything down. Nothing could be further from the truth. I want to give that person my complete and undivided attention.

Oscar Trimboli:
You can revisit episode 26 where Michael Rohde talks about this and episode 18 with Anthony Weeks. Both are professional scribes and they do that in the workplace. And they talk about listening for capital letters in language, and listening for meaning. In one hour typically they’ll capture between six and 10 images and everybody always comment how crisp a representation of the conversation it is.

Oscar Trimboli:
For me to make that real when I’m speaking from the stage in large auditoriums or even in training rooms, always ask the audience if they’d like to email me the notes that they’ve taken. Rarely do they capture more than 10 concepts or ideas when I’ve spoken. Now some people might joke, “That’s because you don’t have more than that Oscar.” But on average it’s about 10 concepts that people capture in a 40 minute presentation. It also helps me as a speaker to understand which concepts have landed in their mind, and just as important, which concepts hasn’t. So it’s no surprise now that Boris has explained why the most visual concepts are the ones that are captured the most. And why the full villains of listening are regular appearances in the notes that I get back from people in the audience when I speak.

Oscar Trimboli:
While we’re talking about the four villains of listening. If you’d like to take the quiz and get a personalised action plan explaining what you can do about your number one listening villain, why don’t you visit listeningquiz.com. You can take the quiz there and get a tailored action plan for your primary listening villain. That’s listeningquiz.com.

Oscar Trimboli:
Now, let’s go back and understand exactly how a seven time world memory champion can shuffle a deck of cards, 52 of them, and recite them back in under 26 seconds. It’s amazing. As the world memory champion, for those people who haven’t seen your TED talk, which I’ll link to in the show notes. The test is basically to remember a set of playing cards. Could you talk us through the world memory championships as it relates to playing cards and maybe how you go and remember the first 10 cards that may come up in a deck?

Boris Konrad:
So what I do, and it’s the same thing, every single memory athlete in the world does is to transform cards into images, and then puts the images on locations. So the memory palace comes back of course. The memory palace in the room might be that I start with the door, then it’s the clothes hanger is number two, the trashcan underneath it is number three. Then it’s just a beautiful chair, number four. Then for the TV screen here it’s number five, telephone it’s number six. Pretty getting a lot already, because you don’t see it right now. Six hopefully still works. So I had the door, the clothes hanger, the trashcan, the chair, the TV set and the telephone. Maybe you could read the cards. Do you want to give me some random cards that come to your mind?

Oscar Trimboli:
The 10 of diamonds.

Boris Konrad:
So the 10 of diamonds for me is a drum. To not make it too long, but all the cards was diamonds, for me it link actually to a circus. Because it’s diamond pattern comes back a lot in the circus. It’s a typical pattern on the circus tent, on the clown’s trousers. So the 10 of diamonds is a drumstick. So the first application was the door. So maybe I’m sitting here giving my podcast talk with you, being very engaged and happy and suddenly the door opens and someone comes in and heavily plays on the drum. And of course it stresses me because no, no, no. Don’t disturb me right now. But it’s a very strong image. If that would happen right now, if someone walking in with a drum, it’s probably a story I will tell in 10 or 20 years in the seminar.

Oscar Trimboli:
Three of hearts.

Boris Konrad:
The three of hearts is an ear. So my ear is the three of hearts, all the hearts cards for me link to human, human body parts, emotions.

Oscar Trimboli:
I’m getting that you already have the association for all 52 cards in advance. You have that in your memory already. You’ve already associated that.

Boris Konrad:
Yes.

Oscar Trimboli:
Then the skill is associating it with each part of the room.

Boris Konrad:
Right.

Oscar Trimboli:
And you’re placing it in the room when you look at it, the card being turned over is my assumption. Is that’s what’s happening?

Boris Konrad:
That’s correct. And to add, also the room is prepared, so I will prepare the room in advance. I have actually thousands of rooms prepared I can use right now to store images on. Because again, that’s what distract me from the actual purpose of just remembering. So these rooms can be quite different. It’s not always indoors. I have a memory palace at Time Square in New York when I was there one time. I have one walking along the Thames in London with all the famous sights. I also have some in my apartment of course. And as you said, the images for the cards are prepared, 52 for me if I have one image per card.

Boris Konrad:
And then the actually task, what’s actually happening while memorising the cards actually, while memorising the cards is looking what card is it, what image is it, and how do I link it to a position? And if I go fast, if I do it well, I can do the whole deck, 52 cards in 26 seconds. So I have like half a second for what I just described in half a minute, like the door open, someone comes in with a drum and I have half a second to make that link and come up with the location and the image for the card.

Oscar Trimboli:
Memory’s not permanent. Memory can be fluid, and using graphics or visual imagery will help code the longer term memory to ensure our recall is better at some point in the future. I think Boris you’ve done an amazing job of helping our listeners understand that one of the top five things I struggle with is memory and recall. Do you have any final tips for those listening to improve memory and recall?

Boris Konrad:
I have one more, and it links to the term you used now, recall. If you want to remember something really over long term and not just all the afternoon. What we call retrieval practise, or the testing effect plays a big role. It simply means whatever you retrieve from your own memory, gets a much stronger memory itself afterwards. So people who tend to review their notes again and again, hardly help their memory. They do a little bit, but not much. But if you recollect yourself, what did I actually hear? I listen to someone speaking to me. I listen to a podcast episode. I just sat in a board meeting where many things were discussed. I had a talk with one of my employees and he told me all the struggles he currently has. Right after the meeting, just ask yourself internally, you don’t even have to take any notes, but ask yourself internally, “What did I just listen to? What was told? What did I hear?”

Boris Konrad:
And just this own recollection, what was the essence of the meeting? What did I hear will make the whole meeting’s information stick in your mind much longer. It’s a well-studied effect and I’m happy if you heard the answer you don’t ask me about the neuroscience behind it. Because I would love to know how it works, but we still don’t know. It’s current big topic in memory research. What’s actually happening is, the brain when you do that, but the effect is massive and really clear. So when you listen to something actually is the same is true when you read something, read the book, write an article. Just afterwards just spend a minute before you read the next article, closing your eyes and asking yourself, “What did I just read? What did I just listen to?” And just asking that to yourself and answering it to yourself of course makes a massive impact on your memory.

Oscar Trimboli:
I’d love to know the last time you forgot something that was really important.

Boris Konrad:
I’m happy you added it was really important, because otherwise it was probably just right now. Really important. I have to recollect that a bit. Well, something that can happen to me as to anyone else is more into attention than memory, but actually at the end forgetting things. Like forgetting keys. This could happen to me as well, because I don’t forget where they are, but when I’m home and I remember the keys are in my office, that’s not so handy and that can and did happen to me too.

Oscar Trimboli:
I’m glad that the world champion in memory can forget where their keys are located. Boris, thank you so much for your time and I’m sure this is going to be one of those episodes where we’re going to get a lot of feedback from the listeners, because the tips you’ve provided are so practical. Thank you.

Boris Konrad:
Those people who want to learn it by me. I do have two TEDx Talks I was invited to you can find on YouTube, which I recommend to you. I also produced an online course people can attend to if they really want to invest some more time in it to really achieve something.

Oscar Trimboli:
So Boris has two TED Talks and an online memory course that you can access through the show notes. I’m relieved to understand more about working memory, and it reinforces the importance and central role of working memory when it comes to listening. Boris makes identical explanations as Dr Stefan from episode 61 about the myth of multitasking when it comes to listening.

Oscar Trimboli:
So what will I implement for my own listening practise as a result of listening to Boris? One, I’ll say the person’s name immediately upon introduction. “Great to meet you Boris.” I’ll understand that memory and recall are very different functions for the brain, and taking and reciting immediately some basic notes will help with longer term memory as opposed to short-term memory.

Oscar Trimboli:
When it comes to note taking, for me it’s one image every three to five minutes and avoid writing it word for word. “Don’t quote the speaker,” is basically what Boris said. Hey, big shout out to all the members of the Deep Listening community. I’d love to get a name for the deep listeners out there. Let us know in the Deep Listening community what we should call ourselves if you visit oscartrimboli.com/Facebook.

Oscar Trimboli:
There I’d like to welcome some of their new members who’ve joined recently, Suzanne, Brendan, Jennifer, Carol, Paulette, Brandy, Emil, Laurie, Genevieve, Nina. Omad, Peter, Elizabeth, Paul, Amanda, and Amanda, Aiden and Michelle, Brett and Tara.

Oscar Trimboli:
I’ve decided based on feedback I’m getting that I’m going to be hosting some meetings within the Deep Listening community twice a month where the community will select a theme that we’ll talk about. You can learn more by visiting oscartrimboli.com/Facebook, and there you can vote in a poll about what topic you want to discuss.

Oscar Trimboli:
A big thank you to Ed from Memphis who wrote down in the Deep Listening Facebook group what he took away from Stefan’s episode 61 on the myth of multitasking. It said, “Fantastic. I have to share the link with all three of our internal intranet sites.” I guess that’s kind of a webpage inside an organisation, as well as some other Facebook groups that I’m part of, living your one thing community. We deliver programmes based on one thing and they explore the myth of multitasking. The interview with Stefan included such helpful data and research. If you haven’t listened to it, I strongly recommend it.” Thanks Ed for taking the time to do that all the way from Memphis, Tennessee, a great part of the world and a great creative capital is what I’ve been told as well.

Oscar Trimboli:
Most people find out about the podcast through word of mouth, so I’m really grateful for all of you in the Deep Listening community for sharing the podcast with your friends. I also want to take some time to thank the people who’ve reviewed the podcast. This is people who’ve taken the time to open their favourite podcast application and write a review about what they’re taking away from the Deep Listening podcast. Now, some of these podcasts applications don’t give you a lot of space, so we don’t even let you use your own name sometimes. So Jayasenda, I’m sure that’s not their name, but it probably in abbreviation has written, “A really powerful podcast. Great insights about how to listen and great examples on how to apply and practise the skill of listening. A must listen for any leader who wants influence.” Thanks so much for that review.

Oscar Trimboli:
Also here, this one’s a little simpler. The Clever Chef, “Hugely relevant and insightful. At the pace we operate today and the will for our attention focus listening is truly a rare commodity. And when we experience it, immediately we know it and our conversation is elevated. I live in a city centre and spend every day commuting, which inspired me to take more productive time. Oscar’s Deep Listening podcast was a perfect New Year’s resolution. The guests have varied, the interviews are genuine and authentic and Oscar is clearly an authority on this remarkable skill.”

Oscar Trimboli:
So, if you’ve been enjoying the podcast, please take a moment to share your review on the podcast application that you’re using right now. It will spread the impact of Deep Listening to people you know, and those you don’t know yet. I had a quick look, the Deep Listening podcast has now been downloaded in 131 countries. I didn’t realise there were that many countries in the world. I think some of them, not quite sure if they’re countries or something else. But I was just looking at the S’s alone. Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Seychelles, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, and my favourite part of the world, the home of chocolate, Switzerland.

Oscar Trimboli:
As you know, we’re on a quest to create a 100 million Deep Listeners in the world, and if we could get you to just share this podcast with one other person, we’d reach a 100 million deep listeners in only 36 months. Thanks for listening.

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