00:05 Oscar Trimboli: G’day and welcome to how to listen.  

Today is going to be a little different – some adjustments.

Today, we arrive at episode 100. In this episode, you’ll get to deconstruct how I listen to the guests. I’ve interviewed over the past 100 episodes. If time allows after the interview has formally concluded, I have a simple and consistent habit where I ask the guests, just one question –   What did you notice about my listening?  

 

 

Now, this is a Level Four listening technique. It’s designed as a way for me to make incremental improvements in each conversation.

 

00:56 Oscar Trimboli When I hear what people notice in the way I listen, I am making some very simple notes in my mind, that’s a very important listening signal, make sure I continue to do it the next time.   Occasionally people will highlight things that surprise me. They highlight things that wow, I didn’t realize that was a listening signal for the person speaking.   It’s critical to understand that when you listen deeply, gently, thoroughly, carefully, you will change the way the speaker communicates.   Not just what they say, not just what they think, but also what they make of the conversation, what it means for them.

 

What can you expect today?   You’ll hear reflections of 11 people and their perspectives on how I was listening to them. You’ll notice some very, very consistent themes. And yet you’ll notice some subtle variations as well. You’ll hear from six females, five males from deaf and blind people you’ll hear from people whose first language is English and you’ll hear from people whose home language isn’t English. You’ll hear from authors, musicians, professors, former military leaders, researchers, psychotherapists, and a range of many others. As you listen to them, deconstruct my listening, please keep these points in mind. This is just the way I listen. My listening context is very specific.  

 

Listening is situational. It’s relational and contextual.

 

The way I listen during an interview is with a listening orientation for the audience, for you. There are many questions I would love to ask the people that I interview yet, they’re only appropriate for me. They’re not going to help you and I play with this duality while I’m listening.   How do I stay in the moment long enough – not to listen, but to listen on behalf of you.   In chapter one of the upcoming book – how to listen and at the end of every chapter in the book, we have a series of three invitations, they’re practices that we invite the reader or the audio book listener to explore, we invite them to explore something to practice because we recommend that you read the book one chapter per week while practicing a technique during that week. So at the end of chapter one, we pose these three invitations and.  

1. Who’s the best listener, you know, and what’s one thing they do well?
2. When was the last time somebody fully and deeply listened to you? and what did they do well during that conversation?
3. When you think about that conversation where you were deeply listen to, how did you think speak and feel differently as a result?

 

I’m delighted to be engaging with a range of the Deep Listening Ambassador community as they provide Advanced Reader Copy feedback on this and Bailey was kind enough to send me a photo of the exercise that I just mentioned from chapter one of the book where she very thoughtfully, , thoroughly and deeply considered those three invitations , and came to some interesting insights, all of her own.   It gives me a lot of joy to be celebrating episode 100 with you and I want to thank you.

 

05:02 Oscar Trimboli The best listening cultures are the best storytelling cultures. It is impossible for you to be heard as a speaker, to have your message communicated without somebody on the other side to listen.   Thank you. Forgive me, I mentioned the Deep, Listening Ambassador Community and Bailey.   Some of you may not be familiar with the Deep Listening Ambassador Community. This is a group of individuals committed to the quest of a hundred million deep listeners in the world.

 

If you’d like to learn more, send an email podcast@oscartrimboli.com with the subject line Ambassador – that’s all you need to send, I’ll sort out the rest for you.

That email address again, podcast@oscartrimboli.com with a subject line ambassador. If you’d like to explore an invitation to become one of the deep listening ambassadors from all around the world.

 

Keep in mind the context for today’s episode, where I invited past guests to reflect on how I was listening to them. Keep in mind that some of these conversations were held face to face. Most were remote and of the remote interviews, some were audio only some commenced with video and stayed in audio only and some were video all the way through from beginning to the end.

06:30 Oscar Trimboli The technique I’m applying here at level four is a practice of continuous improvement and it’s a technique I apply not only in the context of interviewing guests for the podcast, this is the technique I use during the deep listening workshops, which can run anywhere from two to four hours per day, they can be face to face or they can be online or recently we did a combination of online participants face to face participants and me physically in the room and then we’ve done others where I was remote – there were people together, physically in a room, and there were other remote participants as well.  

This question can be replaced with any question, if you’re in a one on one as a manager or any kind of host in a meeting, you can ask a version of this question.   Typically it’s best to ask about 50 to 70% of the way into the meeting so that you can adjust accordingly if you are not necessarily on track for the group.

 

07:37 Oscar Trimboli Now, the question I pose in the interview context is what did you notice about my listening in the face-to-face and online workshops – I pose the question in a way that’s framed the following way.   Today, I’m role modelling a lot about listening without saying anything about him for the next five minutes at your table, discuss the techniques I’m using to role model listening.   If that’s in a chat online environment, I invite people either into a breakout room to discuss that or pause completely and allow them to add that into the chat. Now, although it may be perceived as a technique I use to improve my listening it’s not designed in that way at all.   Getting people to notice two things simultaneously,  

1. What are they personally noticing and what I’m listening, how I’m listening when I’m listening, where I’m listening. These form typically about 30% of the insights for the participants.
2. Yet the next one is the most powerful as the group listens to themselves, they start to see, hear and be informed by ideas, they never even considered themselves.

This is a way to role model group, listening that’s exponential and really, really powerful for the group because it’s a technique they can go and use in any meeting context from now on.

09:06 Oscar Trimboli Here are the themes that people talk about.  

First in the context of when I’m present face to face in a physical environment, they’ll often make reflections of Oscar.   You will always ask the group once somebody’s posed a question to you if they’ve got a similar question, you ask the group to provide a perspective on that question.   You may even clarify the original question. You don’t answer immediately. You pause, you check with the person who asked the question, if that response was productive for them, they also comment on the use of pause the variation in my tonality, the use of the meeting host or the leader or anybody else to explore their perspective. No matter how well somebody is listening to me – when I post this question, they always pick up a minimum of three other techniques, they hadn’t even considered because we’ve created an environment where they listen to the group.

 

10:14 Oscar Trimboli As we move into the online environment, one thing I am very careful to do is when I invite people to use chat, I pause my content completely. There is no audio coming down the channel when I’m asking people to chat, because people will just be completely distracted where you’re setting up this dual environment of you delivering content and them trying to reflect in the chat.  

The themes they notice about my listening when it comes to online environments is.   Oscar, I noticed that you use the moderator to summarize themes, rather than you looking through every single one of the chat lines. You seem to be very conscious to hold your eye contact with the camera lens for extended periods of time. Your use of breakout rooms is thoughtful, deliberate, and align to our purpose. When you use breakout rooms, you take the time to thoroughly debrief us, when we come back from breakouts.  

 

Please, if you are going to commit time to a breakout room, commit an equal amount of time to the debrief.   There is so much power in the debrief as the group communicates with each other. Oscar, I know this sounds counterintuitive, but using a participant’s name helps them as well as the rest of us to go he’s listening. We matter, we count now something, honestly, I didn’t think was that powerful when it came to listening, but I think everybody loves the sound of their own name.  

 

Finally, when we’re in online groups, one of the things that people say is Oscar – you’re very good at listening for themes, and then connecting those themes across participants, groups, conversations, and outcomes. You do this by displaying a genuine curiosity that you may even be wrong about, but you’re always asking questions about connecting items from the beginning of the agenda in the middle internal and external stakeholders.  

 

My absolute favorite   Oscar – You always avoid the temptation to answer instantly your ability to pause, breathe, sometimes clarify the question, then ask others, if this is a common question, then invite others to provide a perspective. 

 

You’re really a lazy presenter because nine out of 10 times, the group answers its own question and when you get to answer that question, one out of 10 times often the person has come to their own conclusion by listening to other perspectives,   Actions speak louder than words.

 

13:02 Oscar Trimboli   As a host, as a leader, what are the actions your role modeling to the group.   Role modeling is one of the critical skills of a military leader. And coming up shortly, you’ll hear from Natasha former West Point military academy instructor, as she deconstructs, my listening.  

 

Listening is contextual. It’s relational and it’s situational.  

 

The way I listen in my interviews varies compared to how I might listen in a paired conversation compared to when I have a group conversation compared to when I’m having a conversation in a personal context versus a professional context. Therefore, the context for what you’re about here next is really critical.   The past guests will now reflect on how I listen to them during the interview. I simply ask this question. What did you notice about my listening?

14:00 Oscar Trimboli Keep in mind, that some of these conversations were face-to-face. Most were remote and of the remote, some were exclusively audio, some commence with video and then went to audio and then some were video the whole way through.   In my discussion with Natasha former West Point military academy leader, this was an interview conducted via video and it was done in two separate meetings. One just to get to know Natasha, and then number two for one of a better word, the formal interview like three other interviews though, is that I had over the last hundred episodes, there was a huge thunderstorm emerging.  

 

One of the hacks I use is I always check the weather in the location for the person I’m interviewing. The reason I did that I interviewed somebody in Florida and they had this huge glass window behind them and I could literally see the storm rolling in from the ocean in towards them and we had to pause the interview because a bolt of lightning was everywhere.  

 

This is a simple example of how to listen before the conversation commences. It’s always surprising to the guests that I can mention their weather conditions and it creates an instant connection. In real life. You may talk about the weather in virtual life. I do that as a way to create connection, too.  

 

Let’s hear now from Natasha reflecting on the question

 

15:35 Oscar Trimboli What did you notice about my listening?

 

15:39 Natasha Orslene I appreciate that I can read how you are interacting with this story by your facial expressions. I very much appreciate that because sometimes you, you start to talk about something and someone’s just like, they have a look like, oh, please stop. <laugh>.  

I would say you’re listening very well. And, and you are that your facial expressions are being a very good guide for how far you go with stories. It’s your, it’s your eyebrows. They definitely go up, not that much, but it’s some <laugh> and then also, yes, your smile. And then when you, I can tell when you’re looking for just a little bit more, your head goes to the side a little bit. So that’s when I know to kind of keep going down like that, with that story

 

16:28 Oscar Trimboli In our next discussion with Chris, we moved to London from San Antonio, where we have a conversation initially via video, but for the remainder of the interview, it was conducted audio only.   When you ask a world class psychotherapist, what did you notice about how I was listening? I was pretty anxious and nervous and intimidated anticipating what Chris might say next.

 

16:58 Chris Mills Oh, the way you’ve been listening to me has been wonderful. <laugh> it’s been wonderful, uh, and accurate.   I feel as if you’ve given me masses of space to explore and revisit my own ideas and I feel that the way that you’ve come back on some of the points has been exciting for me in the sense that it’s made me realize things about my own writing, that I hadn’t appreciated. You’ve picked things up from the Harry story that we’ve been talking about, that hadn’t quite occurred to me. Your listening has been gentle and challenging at times. You’ve forced me into thinking in a way that is exciting and stimulating.

 

17:47 Oscar Trimboli Thanks, Chris – that’s quite a tension – gentle and challenging at times. Chris highlights the importance of listening before the conversation. When I read his books, I was asking different questions from others, as a result Deep Listening changes the way the speaker expresses the ideas – and in this discussion, Chris highlights that I changed the way he explained Harry while equally changing the way he thought about Harry. And ultimately it changed what it thought for him as an author.  

This is something dealing with what it means for Chris listening at Level Five. By the way, Chris sent me at ease very early on in the discussion. He moved that initial conversation from intimidated to intimate, really, really skillfully.

Next I spoke with Lise a professional mediator. I was intrigued in what she’d noticed when we were speaking and listening to each other only one arm’s length apart.

This conversation took place in a recording studio.

 

19:07 Lise Barry You do some of the things I do in mediation. You listen for key terms? You pick up on those terms so that I know you’ve heard what I’ve said, your questions are very open. Don’t feel like you’re judging me as you’re listening to me. It’s not easy to interview people to get the grabs that you want.

19:27 Oscar Trimboli I’m sitting there and knowing there’s gold everywhere in this.

19:31 Lise Barry Yeah. Yeah.

19:32 Oscar Trimboli And for me it’s how do I give witness to what was useful for the audience? Because for me like you and your neutral approach, I can sit here and be incredibly curious myself, but it’s not serving the audience.

19:48 Lise Barry Yeah.

19:48 Oscar Trimboli How do I channel the audience is the key thing I’m listening for at the end of the day, to make sure that it’s in service of them, not in service of my curiosity around the topic. So for me it’s how do I, how do I create both practical and process things for them to think about as they leave today? And you provided both

 

20:07 Lise Barry That’s right. I was thinking earlier about if says those key things, I wasn’t going to come up with that answer that I gave you <laugh>, but it, in terms of what you do as a discipline and a humility, and I know some of your other guests have talked about that as well. It’s that I don’t know what’s best for you only, you know that.   And you’ll come up with that yourself. If I give you the space to do it. . And you have to implement it. So there’s no point me telling you how to, how to do it, but it’s similar in, in interviewing just that discipline of not exploring your own curiosity is difficult.

20:47 Oscar Trimboli Congratulations to Lisa, since we spoke last, she’s been appointed as a professor of law. In our next discussion, we speak to Heather New Zealand, author of the tattooist of Auschwitz with Heather, notice how she expresses the visual elements of my listening first, before moving into the content Heather’s passion, screenwriting. And I think she experiences the world in a very visual way.

 

21:19 Heather Morris You listen with your eyes. Absolutely. And it’s been just a delight to be able to sit here and to see it. Your smile very, really leaves your face about your eyes. That they’re what sparkling increasing. And there is no question about that. You are engaged totally in this conversation with me. And this is a good way of also telling if somebody’s listening that your questions have not necessarily possibly followed the script that you may have had in front of you. Uh, you’ve responded to what I’ve said.

21:48 Oscar Trimboli Now we have a conversation in Toronto with Michael about listening to the status quo and the conversation for organizations. This was a completely video based conversation.

 

22:01 Michael Bungay Stanier One of the things that’s obvious, there’s a quiet, calm presence to being in conversation with you. I don’t worry about you not hearing what I’m saying. And I don’t worry about being interrupted when I’m just getting going something interesting. So I appreciate that. And I also like how you signpost before asking the question, we’ll get into systemic challenges in a minute before I do that, let me ask you this question.

You’ve kind of created an understanding about where I’m going next, but also that you heard what I said there, and you’re going to come back to it. If you can, that’s really helpful. It, you didn’t feel the need to pontificate or explain or go suck some of the oxygen out of the thing, but you went really quickly. I’m just going to loop you in here. So you feel like you’re on a, you are on a safe piece of rope as we carry on this conversation.  

I really enjoyed this conversation. We’ve been talking for 40 minutes and it felt like it, it went really fast. What I least like is the conversations where I’m just being put through a standard set of questions by somebody who doesn’t really know me or my work. And actually doesn’t even care that much about what I’m saying. They’re like, I’m just trying to get some content on tape. Horrible.

 

If you’re lucky you have somebody like you, Oscar who goes, I know your work. I’m a champion for it. I want to make you look good and sound smart. I’m going to set you up to succeed. That’s what this conversation was. You’re like, basically this is as good as I get <laugh>.

This is not, this is not a substandard, Michael. This is like probably overperforming, Michael. So if you think he’s good, I’m like, yeah, this is me at my best. And Oscar set that up for me to make me look really good.

23:47 Oscar Trimboli Now we speak to Daniel who conducted this entire interview via video, very different to any other video interview I’ve done. Daniel takes me on a tour of his home. He introduces me to his cats. He steps into the back garden through the fence, and now through his neighborhood all while conducting this interview during a sunny Southern California summer afternoon, where he invites me to see the world as he sees it at the end of his phone camera selfie stick, listen carefully.

Daniel makes some very nuanced, insightful reflections on my voice and my identity.

This is a very different perspective on my listening.

 

24:33 Daniel Kish So you’ve had experience with vocal modulation to some degree, your inflexion is good. You’ve given several indications that you communicate conscientiously, that there is a genuine conscientiousness behind the way you communicate. Now, maybe that’s your professional persona.

It’s often difficult for people to just turn that off and on.

You have been careful to approach me with sensitivity to my background and to how I might approach things or view things. And you’ve made you you’ve made an intent to do so.

25:18 Oscar Trimboli Daniel was one of very few people to make a reflection on my vocal modulation.

The variation in my voice tonality has come around through interviewing multiple accent coaches and voice coaches in past episodes as a result where possible I will always stand for the interview so that my diaphragm is fully expanded. And I can use my voice through its full range.

That matters because through vocal variation, you increase engagement as a speaker.

It’s really critical. If you are consistently monotone, it’s very difficult for the listener to keep their attention.   Whereas if your voice pops and sparkles and varies, there are different points of modality for speaker and the listener to connect and engaged.

 

This interview next is with Evelyn in Scotland. It’s also via video conference specifically at her request. It was on Skype rather than zoom. It’s a platform that she is most familiar with and when you want to set the guest at ease, you work with the tools they want to work with. Unlike other interviews, listening in this context before the meeting meant that I wore a black jacket with a black background to remove all distractions, my black jacket was zipped up completely to the top of my neck to allow Evelyn to focus fully on my face without any visual distractions behind me.

Most people will hear this and won’t be able to see it and I’m curious what you’ve noticed in the way I listen

 

27:30 Evelyn Glennie For the listeners out there. Whenever you ask a question, you’re smiling and at the end of the question, you smile even more <laugh>.

 

And that really, that really helps me bring a, a, a kind of joy, I suppose, to how I want to answer a question, but sorts of thoughtfulness. I think that it’s the, the, the pace of how you, you express a question it’s not a hurried way. It’s a very calm way.

 

I think that it’s something whereby I have no option, but to want to answer your, your questions. And I think that that’s all about engagement. So you have that way about you, but you also have a way whereby you really want to, you, you, you, you want to reach out to people.

28:06 Oscar Trimboli Is there anything I could have done to make this interview more productive for the audience

 

28:12 Evelyn Glennie You’ve just constructed a wonderful interview and I, so many of the questions have been so well thought about and so far from often the usual questions I’m I’m presented with. And so that I find really, really engaging and, and interesting. And I think you just have a way about you that I think the audience will absolutely engage with. It’s quite interesting because in a way, as a musician, people expect me to play all the time. <laugh> and, uh, but it’s rather nice to be able to have the opportunity to, to talk about something that is not reliant on getting an instrument out or, or doing something.

 

And I think that that’s the important thing with listening is that you don’t need fancy tools to engage with in order for people to, to think about this particular subject.

And just before I forget, the, the other element is, would the podcast be, when I say subtitled, would it be possible for hearing and impaired people to engage with?

 

29:20 Oscar Trimboli So James is always good for me. And he was the person who said, it’s probably going to be helpful for, and if you’ve got a black background. So I hope that helped because I was very deliberate in creating some contrast in my face apparently it’s not something I’ve done before. So hopefully

 

29:36 Evelyn Glennie It’s been amazing. It’s been amazing because a lot of times we’re doing Skype over the, or interviews rather over the internet.

We’ve, we’ve had to ask people to move from the window or from a light, or it, it is hard work actually, but you’ve, you’ve just really thought about that brilliantly.

And, and I, I very much appreciate that. So, and a lot of our work obviously is about thinking about inclusiveness and , and the way that you’ve engaged in that is, has been amazing.

 

30:06 Oscar Trimboli Since episode one, I can proudly say, we’ve thought about the podcast via audio with complete transcripts.

 

We’ve consistently received feedback about the presence of the transcripts as apparently, only 5% of podcasts create transcripts for the people who want to experience them. We want to make sure that they are as accessible as possible.  

Next, we go to Berlin via Rhode Island and Alison is initially from Rhode Island, but she’s doing some research on Naked Mole Rats and how they use language, but more importantly, how Alison listened to that.

 

I think the context for this is critical for me and my learning, because I had to go and think carefully about what Alison noticed in my listening.   The context for this interview was it was video, and it was done at around 11:00 PM my time. And I should have probably either got some sleep or done it when I was a lot fresher. I suspect it impacted my listening batteries because they weren’t fully charged. Most of the interviews I conduct.

I deliberately know that my energy’s highest before noon and that will often have me doing interviews anywhere, starting at 4:00 AM for East Coast, United States time, – Your listening batteries are affected by your body energy. Let’s hear what Alison had to say about my listening.

31:37 Alison Barker It’s weird because I haven’t done many of these with video And so I, I noticed Yoda in the back and I also <laugh> noticed like that I was waiting for you to smile or give me some sort of cue.

So I knew when to stop talking for most of it, you actually had like a very neutral and open face, which I think is good. There was no micro judgments or anything. Just a smile at the end. <laugh>

32:02 Oscar Trimboli From Berlin, let’s go to San Francisco and speak to Kevin. His feedback makes me reflect on how well did I set him up for success?

32:12 Kevin Briggs You don’t move much, very attentive and you have fantastic questions. I can tell you put a lot of thought into this. So that’s really cool. You made me think, which is great.

32:23 Oscar Trimboli And what Was the one question that got you thinking the most?

32:26 Kevin Briggs The biggest one was about the note. Hey, tell me about the note. And I’m thinking I’d never memorized the note. I don’t know. It was a note. It was a thank you note. I’m like, oh no, I’m sweating. <laugh>

32:26 Oscar Trimboli Kevin is a master at setting you at ease and although we left the conversation laughing, it made me reflect on that should have been a question I posed to him well in advance of the meeting.  

Listening happens before, during and after the conversation.  

This note was quite critical to his TEDTalk and to the story that he told.  

Finally, I had the opportunity to speak to Netta and to Guy about listening.

This is the time I felt by far the most pressure I’ve ever felt as somebody as passionate about listening as I am Netta and Guy are full time academics and researchers in the field of listening. That’s all they do all day. Every day. I could have decided not to ask the question. What did you notice about my listening?

The opportunity was too great to pass up.

This interview was conducted over video and at the beginning of the video, because there were two people that I would be in a discussion with and was very deliberate to ask a question.

One about process and two about content. The process question was really simply today. If I pose a question, I will direct it to the person I feel is best placed to answer it. It’s done to avoid that ping pong back and forth between two guests. , I think you should answer that Guy. No you Netta, please go first .

34:20 Oscar Trimboli That doesn’t create a great audience experience. I think being a little overt at the beginning of the conversation before you press the record button helps people to know how the conversation will take place. And I think great hosts in workplace meetings set this up really well.  

• How do we want to take questions?
• How do we want to progress issues?
• How do we want to note actions?

In this conversation, the first question was I will direct a question to somebody and if it’s not appropriate, the other person will answer and that played out. The content question was what would make this a great conversation for both of you and Netta will talk about the impact that had on her as well.

35:04 Netta Weinstein I’m Netta Weinstein, I’m an associate professor at the University of Reading and I’m a motivational and social psychologist.

 

35:13 Guy Itzchakov And my name is Guy Itzchakov, I’m an assistant professor at the University of Haifa in Israel in the department of human services and my research is focusing on the effects of high-quality, listening on speakers, listening listeners, and their relationships, attitudes and, persuasion

 

35:35 Oscar Trimboli Guy, What have you noticed about how I’m listening today?

 

35:38 Guy Itzchakov I noticed that you smile a lot to maintain really good eye contact. You are barely distracted when you listen.

Since the pandemic to conversations via zoom, one of the things we had to train our research assistants is how to maintain eye contact with the speaker because it’s different. If I’m looking at the screen, you don’t perceive that I’m looking at you.

And I noticed that you are looking at me. I can only see your upper half of the body, but you maintain a very constant and relatively open body posture during the conversation. It makes me feel that I’m saying something interesting.

36:12 Oscar Trimboli Netta, I’m curious, what have you noticed in my listening?

36:20 Netta Weinstein One of the things that I’ve noticed is the way that you ask questions.

In my head, I thought, oh, is this, is this the right thing to talk about when we talk about listening? But actually the questions are really important.

 

There’s a way that you’ve been asking us questions both while we’ve been talking, as we talked about the structure for today, setting up, helping us to orient to what will be, how we’ll be approaching this podcast. I noticed that you asked questions, that one allow us to really reflect on how we want, what we want share and what we want learn. and in a big way, not in a way that kind of closes us up to having to answer in, in certain kind of restricted ways.

It really is about the way they’ve been asking questions that has helped me feel like, wow, you really want to know what I have to say about this topic and not just the topic of listening, but even the topic of what will today look like and how can I feel more comfortable when, when I talk to you, it’s actually the cell of asking questions.

You’re really interested in what we’re going to be saying.

That helps me feel like I can open up and talk about, about whatever. And that’s okay.

37:35 Oscar Trimboli If you were to describe the characteristics of the questions that I’ve been asking,

37:40 Netta Weinstein What I’ve noticed is actually not the content of your questions.

I’m going to open it up now to discussion, but it’s actually the way that you ask the questions as well. When you ask a question, it’s even your tone of voice says, I’m interested in what you’re going to be saying, which often we might, we might not think about tone of voice, but I found that to be really, really striking.

And you’ve expressed to us through the way that use your body language to say now, with all of me, I’m opening it up to discussion, asking these questions in a way that opens it up to discussion, but also also asking in a way that shows I’m really interested in learning the answer through the way that I’m, I’m looking at you using my, my open posture and, and really using this tone of voice that shows I’m really interested in, in what you have to say.

 

38:31 Oscar Trimboli We’re in the middle of a 30 day listening habit workshop at the moment it’s completely online.

We’ve got 45 people participating. It’s all via email. And the most striking thing that people said in the first third was one of the comments I made to the group that listening is a full body experience and when you embody listening, rather than do listening, amazing things start to happen, Guy, any other reflections?

39:01 Guy Itzchakov Yes. Talked about the questions.

One of the basics and core things. I noticed that you let us finish the answers. And this is not something that we, I take for granted. Like a week ago, I gave an interview to a radio show and the interviewer did not let me, like when I, in the middle of my answer, he jumped to another question and made and made like a reflection, not, or a comment that was even not conveying that you really didn’t understand or wanted to take it to a completely different direction.

And I came out of this interview, exhausted. And now actually, as we continue this interview, I’m, I’m becoming more and more relaxed. And I think some of it is your listeners cannot see it, but you have a very cosy background with the candles and the books.   It’s like a cosy living room. And another, another thing is that you, even though Netta and I are known to speak a lot, which is ironic, we speak about listening, but you, you let us to finish what we want to say and I think the silence is really impactful here.

You don’t try to break the silence when there are like a few seconds of silence, which is a very important characteristic. When we train our listeners don’t be afraid of the silence. Actually, the silence can produce deeper insights. If you let it be.

40:30 Oscar Trimboli What a joy it is to have a mirror place to the side of me by two global experts. Well, there’s a rapid tour all around the world from Berlin to Cambridge, to Haifa, to London, Melbourne, San Antonio, San Francisco, Sydney, and Toronto. My wish is for this episode to be a celebration of listening and the impact that the listener has on the way the speaker communicates and what they think and how they make sense of the world.  

In April, 2008 was in a video conference between Sydney, Seattle, and Singapore and at the 20 minute mark Tracey, my vice president looked across the room and said, Oscar, see me immediately. After this meeting at the end of the meeting, Tracey simply said to me, if you could code the way you listen, you could change the world in that moment of profound insight from Tracey, I had no idea what she meant and yet ever since then, whether it’s with our deep listening quiz, our three books, the podcast, our workshops, our practice cards I’ve been coding. How I listen   Coming up soon, we’ll be releasing the most comprehensive book on workplace, listening – how to listen.

If you’d like to access this early, please visit https://www.oscartrimboli.com/howtolisten/

There you’ll be able to access the book and you can identify what format you prefer.

The book will be available on paperback eBook, as well as audio- book, I’m Oscar Trimboli. And along with the Deep Listening Ambassador Community, we are on a quest to create a hundred million deep listeners in the world.  

You have given us the greatest gift of all.  

You’ve listened to us.

Thanks for listening.

 

 

42:30 Oscar Trimboli As we do at the end of every episode, there’s something that I feel was very powerful to include in this conversation.

The final word on noticing listening goes to the author of the book, Breath, James Nestor.

 

42:26 James Nestor   In some something I do whenever I’m on an interview is I always close my eyes because I’ve found that before, which is what I’ve been doing this entire interview as well. It’s a good thing. You don’t have the camera on. You’d see a weird guy with his eyes closed because I’ve found that removing that sense removing vision can allow me to fall so much more easily into what someone’s saying into what I’m saying into what I’m feeling. So that’s, that’s a trick I, I use all the time. Every day,   I’ve noticed I, I’m not a visual person. I’m much more a, a musical person. I’m much more into sound than I am to into sites. And, and so I I’ve found that I can much more easily process and respond to questions if my eyes are closed. And I’m able to sort of roam between that conscious and subconscious place and try to pull out these little factoids. I thought I had forgotten. I found that that’s so much easier if you just remove that, that sense of vision, especially a laptop filled with 20 different browser windows. I mean, that would be my nightmare.  

 

If you would like to listen to the episodes referenced in this episode,  

Podcast Episode 096: Emergency listening, how to listen when you’re doing something for the very first time – Natasha Orslene

Podcast Episode 099: Why it’s worth listening to people you are in conflict with – Christopher Mills

Podcast Episode 035: Listen first, come up with the solutions later with Lise Barry 

Podcast Episode 093: The power of listening and how it forever changed the life of Heather Morris

Podcast Episode 090: Why it’s important to listen to the status quo with Michael Bungay Stanier

Podcast Episode 082: Being a better listener by suspending shrewd judgement with Daniel Kish

Podcast Episode 070: Teaching the world to listen with Evelyn Glennie

Podcast Episode 091 : Learn how to listen with the patience of a neuroscientist with Dr Alison J. Barker

Podcast Episode 092: How to effectively listen to someone who is suicidal with Kevin Briggs

Podcast Episode 074: Unlock the ancient secrets between listening and breathing with James Nestor