Deb, hello everyone and welcome my guest today is Deb Porter, a really dear friend of mine, I believe. And even though we haven't known each other that long, I feel like we have, and I think that's a tribute to her communication skills, and in in in particular, listening, alright, this is Deb's Bailey wick. I love that word and not, not used very often. So first of all, welcome to the show, Deb.
Thank you so much, Janice. I'm excited to be here,
my pleasure, and so excited to have you. So in your in your bio, you talk about, you think that soft skills need to be reframed or re coined as essential skills, and
I totally agree with you. Back in the day, when I was working a contract position for a long time as a trainer in the telephone company, I used to teach soft skills, and those in that context were telephone, courtesy, customer service, things, listening was one of the things that was part of my my course that I taught, and how to deal with difficult customers and all these things. How can we say these are soft skills. They are so totally essential to be able to work, communicate and
and, you know, treat people well. They're very, very important. And so I know that in your company, I want you to tell me about how this came about for you and how the focus is in hold, hearing out life drama, which is the name of your company, has become your mission. And so talk to me about that. Oh my goodness. Tell my viewers about why should it be an essential skill? Talk to me about that.
Well, first of all, I don't know if your listeners might know, but in 1969 that's actually from the army, from the military. That's where the the term soft skills was coined. And so, yes, so I actually researched that, because I was like, I need to know, where did this come from, and why, and why has it stuck? And so I think because it was, you know, a government term. And, you know, across our nation, it really
spread, and it dug into our to our frame of business. And I just feel like what you said so beautifully in your example, from you know, your earlier position, that communication is life altering in all aspects of the business, whether it's in customer service or in in sales or or whatever. So, yeah, how did I so? How did I end up here? My background and training is actually as a United Methodist pastor. I have a 96 hour master divinity degree with a specialization in care and
counseling. That's where I get the the knowledge and the authority to do what I do. And then, of course, through my life, I've built upon that. I'm now 52 and I was working at a funeral home. When I had the idea for my business, the funeral home changed the compensation package they were offering, and I was like, Okay, if I can do anything in my life right now, what is it that I really want to do? And what came to me as I was holding my towels was really, what if I just
listen? What if I just listen? I mean, it's so basic and so human, but that's, that's kind of me, and that's who I am. I'm, I'm really down to earth. And so, yeah, so I built a business around listening,
amazing, really. But listening isn't just listening. There. There are many ways that we listen or don't listen. So Can you expound on that a little bit?
So a lot of times, people think that listening starts with the other person, and what I teach is it does not listening starts with you, and you have to come into a conversation calm and ready to hear. And I think that's the piece that most people don't get or and it can throw them off, because if you haven't taken the time to be calm and centered at the beginning of an interaction, then you're not able to stay focused and clear through, throughout so
well, I would say today, what comes to mind when you say that is, it's we make it so much harder for ourselves today, for ourselves today with that exact example, because the minute we sit down at a at a meeting or whatever, our phones on our desk or on the table, and that's a distraction from the word go. And I watched a great Simon Sinek video one time about cell phones and and, and he said something like, and don't think that because you turn your phone upside down on the table that it
makes any difference, your phone does not belong there. You know, in that meeting, and we all do it. I did it last night. We I was at a dinner thing, which was a networking event, and I saw that some few of the other girls had put their phone out there.
Because sometimes, like I, I use it as an example to show. To this LinkedIn tool that I use with the with the QR code that people have, and I want to share it with them if it comes up, but, and I don't have business cards anymore, because I use my phone as that, but, but it's not right, because it's distracts us from listening, from what I know you call them, what I know to be active listening. Yes, right? Yeah, exactly,
yeah. So active. So what do we mean when we're talking about active listening? What does that exactly mean? So active listening is the art of fully engaging both with content and emotion. Let's to do the definition. That's my definition. The I'll say it again, the art of fully engaging with the content and the emotions. So I think a lot of times, I've had questions come back from people and they're saying, you know, this person just keeps going on and on and
on and on and on. I just don't get why. They don't understand that I'm hearing them. And what I offer is are, are you making sure to reflect back to them the feeling of what they're saying? Because you you're getting the content, but unless they understand that the feeling is also heard, they're not going to be able to move on. So and then I see light bulbs come on. They go, Oh no, I didn't actually well.
And also they that kind of person finds it difficult to not interrupt, but to get into the flow of that conversation, they let the person continue and continue and continue. And sometimes people do that because they're nervous or because they because the person that hasn't drawn right hasn't been drawn in or whatever. So I think it takes both parties for sure. But you you talked about you don't know if you're being heard. And I think there's a difference
between hearing and listening 100% Yeah. Okay, so I just wanted to clarify that, because I could hear you but not have listened to anything you said. I remember when my daughter, one of my daughters, was was little, and I was working and and I was always, you know, distracted because I had to get lunches made, or I had to get the dishes done, or I had to get dinner
made, or whatever. And that's the time after school between, you know, when you're preparing dinner, when the kids will come to you and want to share something with you, and you make the mistake quite often of listening while you're doing something else, but you're not really listening, so you miss it, right? And it's not fair to the child. And I think I remember, I think one time my daughter said to me, I'll tell you later when you when, when I think you're listening, you
know? And then the light bulb goes on there, too, right? It's like, oh, wait, I need to have full attention when I'm talking and listening with my or having a conversation with my child. That's so important, right? More than any of these business things, as far as I'm concerned, but it's one of those examples, right? Well, and
I think it happens in business too. I can give you an example from the funeral home. I experienced a colleague who was frustrating me, and I finally it escalated to the point where I felt I needed to go speak to the manager. I was going to explode, which is very rare for me. Like, imagine how extreme this was, because it was pretty rare for me. And so I went and knocked on his door, and he was doing something, and I said, I need some I need some of your time to talk about a
thing. Do you have time to do that? And he was like, typing away doing something else he's like, but he, he was able to say, give me one minute to finish this, and then I'll be able to focus on you. And then he really did. He he shifted his whole body language, everything he did let me know, okay, you now have my full attention, and let's, let's really hear this. And that's really powerful, because as a manager, he needed to hear how to present, yeah, so. But you know, if he had just
said, Oh, well, you know what? What is it? And continued to type his message, which he had done other times in the past, and it was the way I framed it. I need your attention right now. My experience with that was different, so I think managers really need to tune in, pay attention. I mean, I think parents too. There's not that we ever want to just ignore, but really know those important we don't want to miss those important moments ever well. And
we're teaching that, that we're teaching that way of doing things too. If we show that we're paying attention
fully, then they will learn to do the same, right? And I know that when it comes to an old tool, the telephone, which I still love to use, because that was my first go to when I was first starting out in business, showing my age now, but the telephone, and I still love the telephone, and when I call somebody, and sometimes I do, sometimes I get a prompting to call somebody, like I'm on LinkedIn and I'm looking at something, and I see that they're online, or I so possibly
at their desk, and I'll just look and see if there's a phone number, or if I you know. Um, I don't know. I just get a prompting to call someone, but when I do, and I and if they answer, the first thing I always say is, thank you so much for picking up the bone, because it's such a rare thing. Although I think it's coming back, I really do. However, when they do, I do ask them, Do you have a couple of minutes? Because if they don't, I'm not going to start rambling on, right?
Because then they're really not going to like it and they're not going to listen. So that's, that's the key, right? Okay, so you have the privilege of, in your work, listening to many personal dramas through your platform. What are some common themes that you've noticed in the stories that people share, and how have these impacted your perspective on relationships? Because, you know, I'm all about relationships.
Yeah, so going to the B to C side of the business, I'll shift shift my mindset a little bit the the common theme, there's a lot of fear of judgment among people. And a lot of people are coming and saying, you know, I just really couldn't talk to my family about this. They wouldn't understand. Or I, I knew they would give me advice when that's really not what I need. Those, those two things are very common, on the person
the drum, yeah, on the personal side, on the drama side. Yeah, okay, and yeah, is
it? Is it easy? Do you believe then? Because I do that, it's easier sometimes to talk to a stranger than it is to talk to someone who's really close and has a bias already?
Yeah, I think there's a place for both. And we need both. We're humans. We need relationships, as you well know. Yeah, so, but there are times that things come up and they're, you know, family, friends or co workers, are too close to the problem, like they're involved in it, or worse, they really are the problem, and you can't talk to them about them about it. You've already tried, and there hasn't been a resolution yet,
and it's still a little bit stuck. And so having the opportunity then to really talk that through can be so beneficial?
Okay, let's shift it to the business side. Now a little bit. How do you think listening and empathy skills, essential for your platform, translate into stronger professional relationships, especially in leadership or team dynamics? Let
me give you an example from a team training that I did. The gentleman asked the question, how do I offer empathy to the CEO who I just think is expletive deleted? And I was like, well, that's great. That's a great question. How do you do that? Like, what do you what do you think it's like in his role right now? And so we really started to just think about, have, have you had an opportunity to interact with him, very much on a personal level? Have you Do you know much
about what the pressures are in his life, in his role? And I started to offer questions and further, like develop that, and kind of develop a persona of of a guy that he really hadn't seen as a person. He saw him as this thing, but he didn't understand that he might be responding as a as a result of the pressures he felt in in the role, and he might actually be trying to protect this gentleman. And he was missing that. He wasn't even
seeing that. And so we can develop empathy by really looking all the way around what, what it is that they're presenting us what, and then starting to wonder, okay, well, how,
what are they presenting? What
are they exactly? Yeah, well, and that can get tricky, because what you don't want to do is make assumptions about people that's that's never better, but asking questions and getting you know, curiosity, I know, is one of your things,
yeah, and so I think that's super important. When we get curious and we we suspend our judgment a little bit, and we start to look all the way around the problem, then we can get somewhere, somewhere new and different, and have empathy, exactly as you said, for for someone else that it's a struggle with.
Okay? So as someone who listens to life's many dramas. How do you handle your own emotional balance while being so involved in others experiences?
So as I stated at the beginning, I am a spiritual
person. So that's that's a part of who I am and what I do. And so I have a very strong meditation practice that I start my morning with, and I understand that if I don't take care of me, I don't have anything to pour out of so before this conversation, you may have noticed that I was into the Zoom Room five minutes ahead of time, and so I was already doing some centering things for myself before this conversation to make sure I was at my best to be able to present to you and
your audience something that was really powerful,
perfect. Thank you. So what are your hopes for the future of hold hearing out life drama? I know I think you've got some exciting projects or collaborations on the horizon, anything you'd like to share with us?
Oh my goodness. So I'm really excited about the part. Partnerships with lawyers that we've got started, and the whole concept around that is, you know, lawyers are went into it because they wanted to uphold the law and help people and but as I understand their background and training, they were taught the law, but they weren't necessarily taught the emotional intelligence skills, and so a lot of them got thrown into the deep end without knowing how to do the active listening and the
emotional intelligence piece is really required. And they can feel really overwhelmed by all of that. It can feel like, for example, one, one woman wrote, you know, I just spent the last, I don't know, six months, nine months, on this woman's case, and I wrote 85 I think it was 85 emails. It was a ridiculous amount. And, you know, answering, showing up in court, doing all the things, and she won and and the Google review that she left was that I did a good job. Like, what, what do
these people want from me? And what, what people want from you is really that active listening and that emotional intelligence, and when you present that, that's what's really going to connect and give you that excellent review. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so
we're talking about a specific type of attorney here, or lawyer, a divorce and family lawyer, okay, and, and I know exactly what you're talking about. They, they can come across as very stiff or very left brain, all left brain, right? You don't see any emotion. But now I forgot what I was going to say. What was I going to say? Oh, that is the, I
don't know. There's a fine line right between them, having to be in control for you when you're having all the emotional upset about what you're going through, but that empathy piece again, come needs to be there. You know, I can know you're listening to me, but I don't know that you actually care, or I'm just another case number. So that's the important piece for me. I think there, and I've been through through that, so I I
totally identify. But do you find that the lawyers or attorneys that you're that are coming your way are female, or are they male and female?
At this time, I see a lot more interest on the how, on, on the male side, I would say it's probably, uh, 7525 75% male. It's, it's strongly leaning that way in terms of the business. It also strongly leans that way in terms of my, the personal side of my business, that is entirely female. Um, that's, but that's way more skewed 97%
Wow. Okay, yeah, okay, okay, so let's just elaborate on that, just a little bit, because I think it's a great partnership. So if not not saying I have divorce attorneys as my audience, but one never knows there may be somebody out there listening. But what would you say are the key benefits of partnering with someone like you to support their clients beyond the legal framework?
I think that the first benefit is, of course, the calm mind. Because if, if a client's able to have a conversation with myself or one of my colleagues and really be heard, they'll be able to come into the meeting with you with a clear mind, and instead of presenting all of this having that emotional dysregulation, they'll be able to to create that more quickly and maintain it throughout.
Do you think that is part of your work then going to be or is it working with their clients, with the with the actual client, or is it strictly working with the attorney to help them with the skills they need to be a better divorce lawyer. Let's say,
Well, if the attorney is is open to learning that, yes, 100% then then that mentoring is open and available. But the actual offer on the landing page right now is specifically combining our ebook along with the listening appointments for their clients. Got it? Okay?
So I something, I ask people a lot, because I remember talking, or I told you, I taught listening as part of the cus the telephone, courtesy that I taught, and it was used, it was mostly around the telephone, right? Because it was the telephone company that I worked for, so we did a lot of telephone training, and I had a book and account I didn't find it again. It's in my shelf somewhere about active
listening. And the very first thing that the guy talks about is the the acronym for the word or the an anagram for the word listen. Do. You know, you probably know it the anagram for the word listen.
I don't actually silent. I have heard that actually now that you say that, I'm like, Oh yeah, light bulb,
though, isn't that? Like,
yes.
How did that happen? Like, that's like, that's just so interesting to me, just that whole concept, because when you're listening, you need to be silent. And I don't get it. I like, how did that happen to me? That's just a quirk and that somebody noticed it, you know? I
think it's the universe playing with us. Actually,
there are no accidents right there. Okay? I just thought that was kind of fun. So do you have, and this is putting you on the spot, but you can say no if you don't. But do you have any a story of somebody that you, that you know really, that you really helped and taught what they needed, that sent them on their way a better person. Oh, it was so great,
because I love that you asked this question because I had a conversation actually, with a mentee last night. We happened to connect again, and she said, Oh my gosh, Deb, I was using the skills that you taught me just today at the end of her work day she had had. So she's a sales professional, and she takes inbound calls for a health health company, health health
company selling products. And she ended up on a call with a very irate client who had been mistreated by one of her colleagues, and was they were very, very angry, and she said that she applied absolutely everything I had taught her in the conversation. And at the end, the person said, can I just work with you directly? Can I just, can I just have your Can I have your direct line and just do all my sales through you? And she said, and debit, and debit only took 10 minutes. It only
took 10 minutes. And I was like, yes, that's that's the power of listening. This is what this is what it is people. And it's just so fun and so beautiful. And she was so happy, because, as she applies it in her work, she understands now she doesn't have to fix people's problems. She She understands because before, when we started working she had all of this weight that she was carrying, and she was like, dragging their problems along with her. Like, you don't have to do that. Don't do that.
There's a better way. Let me show you how. So anyway, we work together. She learned a lot of things. She applies it now, and, yeah,
it's good. That's amazing. Okay, so that you need to help me here, because customer service and customer service issues just really rile me up when they're when I don't get good customer service, because I used to teach it, so I right, and it's so different today than it was okay, and nobody seems to care. Because you can't find you can't talk to anybody in so many sorry, in so many instances, you can't talk to anybody. You have to, you know, talk online, chat online
or email, which drives me crazy. I want to talk to someone, so they're great. When they when you want to buy something, they'll talk to you. But when you want to fix something, they really okay. So I've had this ongoing issue with my cable company, Shaw, and I will say Shaw, which is here locally, but it was just bought by they just merged with another company, and the service has gone down the tubes. And when you do finally
get hold of somebody, you want them to care. They may not be able to fix the problem themselves, but you just want them to care, not real off the the response that they've got written on a piece of paper that says, I'm so sorry that you've had this. I don't get, you know, don't give me that just right, right? So how do you deal with that? What do you do when you come up against that? Because I'm ready to kill so I have to, you know, I have to, first of all say to them, Look, I know
it's not your fault. I know you're reading from here, or you're doing this because you're and you're being recorded, but I just want somebody to help me.
That's where the story of the thrashed potatoes in my family came from. So I actually had a really bad so my husband was sick. We're now divorced, but my husband was sick for very sick for eight years, and I had an experience where I was trying to resolve a medical issue for him that was so frustrating. It was incredibly frustrating. And I was also fixing, trying to fix dinner and care for my kids while I was caring for the sick man, and at the end of the call,
I thrashed the potatoes. I didn't match them. I thrashed them. And so now it's a whole joke among our family. Anyway, yeah, so how do I deal with it? Obviously, much like you, the frustration grows, right? Because it's before you ever get to the person. You're already dysregulated because you're frustrated because you had to push crap. Was it three or was it? Is it actually a number two issue, like, which, like trying to understand their system so and then when you finally do get
a person, sometimes they disconnect. I've had that happen that's incredibly, oh man, don't start on that. That's really, really, yeah, you know, those, those people that pass the hot potato, that's what I call it in my trainings like, you know, like, hot potato, hot potato, hot potato. Somebody take the time. Doesn't take long. Everybody thinks it's going to take this long time to deal with this angry person. It doesn't.
It doesn't take a long time. It takes knowing what to do and how to do it in a kind, compassionate way, to share, to share some a little bit of empathy and and be honest and authentic like and you know, managers need to be telling people it's okay if you don't know the answer, send you know that it's okay if you don't know the answer. And so this is part of, you know, again, you've done training for teams. I've that's
part of what I'm doing now, training teams. How do we deescalate these dragons that, come on, that come on, and it's because it's an art. It is.
I mean, I finally, after three or four or five times of waiting on hold at least an hour and a half. One time 30 minutes, another time 30 minutes, and I can't stay. I gotta go. I got things to do, and then I finally decided to call the department that renegotiated my contract with me, rather than the customer service department, because they were real quick. So I did, and they answered, and I went, This is amazing. I said, very interesting. And the guy said,
but you're in the wrong department. I said, I know, I know I'm in the wrong department because I can't get through to the right department. And the guy ended up being quite nice about it. And he said, I'll transfer you. I said, Nope, don't transfer me, and not unless you're going to stay on hold until I get somebody right, because I'm not like. He said, Listen. He said, If I transfer you to the customer service department, you'll get through fairly quickly because you've
come from another department. I said, you're kidding. He said, No, it's just the way it is. So I said, Okay, he transfers me, I get through in two minutes. Wow. I'm like, I don't believe it. What am I going to do next time? I'm not going to call customer service. I'm going to call there and do the same thing again.
Because I can't believe that was so ridiculous. So yeah, but then I finally got some satisfaction, because this girl did care, and she did listen, and she, you know, assured me that she would stay with me till my problem was solved. But the when you get so frustrated, the first person that gets you gets all of that, yes, they do. Yeah. So yes,
yes, they do. And it's the wise person, the one on the front line that's getting that they have to understand that it's not theirs to carry and it's theirs to do the best they can in that moment, and believe that by doing that, they have helped, and that's what matters
Well, and that's, yeah, sorry, go ahead. That's
how you go home at the end of the day and feel satisfied. That's how you go home at the end of the day, and you're not bringing all of this junk home with you through the front door to your kids, yeah, or your dog, or whatever.
And a good job in what you do. Right? I think today, though, here's a question for you, last question before I get to something else, do you notice a difference when you're training teams today, then maybe a few years ago, because, because of the digital world, because things have changed so much, because we can't get through to anybody and all of that, and because of the generation that we're working
with in often younger Things are different. I feel like they don't have the same empathy skills, the same listening skills today,
yeah, since I've started my business, I've I have created the core, which is what I teach, and the emotional intelligence pieces are kind of baked into that and for me, and what I found is, when you really listen to where someone's starting from the interaction, that's where it's rich, right? Starting starting from that, just like I talked about with this other client, right? Started from where she was,
helped her get to where she needed to go. And just depends on where they're starting from, what they really need from, from me, and you see a
resistance at all with the younger people, or do you see a tuning out at all because they everything's very quick today, right? And so they might be listening to what you're talking about. They're on their phone at the same time.
Hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fun, because they, they got permission for that when they were in school, and so, yeah, they're, they're bringing it into the workplace now, and that's a whole thing. Yes, indeed. Sorry, teachers out there, if there's a teacher listening in, I don't know. I don't know. Just, just
mandated here where I live, that phones aren't allowed in the classroom anymore. But there's no consistency about how it's being regulated. So it's going to be a disaster. But anyway, it's another story. But yeah, so, so do you find a difference then?
Yeah, there. There really is I. I attempt, in all of my teaching and all of my training to be short and quick and to make it. You know, it doesn't take a long time to learn what I teach. It just takes practice and intention. I really believe that, and because I do that, I really feel like it's applicable to any any person of any age. Only Did you know, only 2% of people, at least in the US have have ever had any active listening training at all. 2% isn't that
astounding. It's not taught in our schools. Only 2% the that kind of just blows my mind. That statistics probably about eight years old, now nine years old, so I maybe it's gone up. I would like to believe that I'm a part of that change, and I'm going to change that a lot. But yeah, oh,
wow, yeah, that's that goes back to I'll tell you when I think you're listening, because it's true. Yeah, that's amazing. That's very sad, actually. Okay, this is so much
fun. I could talk about this forever, because I think it's such an important skill and to do properly and and, you know, even like, I have a little granddaughter who's the light of my life, and she's just starting school, and all of the sort of preschool training and the you know, the things that you teach them when they're toddlers and whatever at home, if we can teach them to listen and to act accordingly, or to learn something by listening, as opposed to by seeing as well.
They get those that practice and so on. It's an ongoing thing. It's a skill that we have to learn. And that's really interesting that you that there's only 2% did you say 2% Wow.
Okay,
amazing. Okay, how can people get hold of you? And then I've got one last question for you. How can people share?
Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn. Of course you can find me there, and if you want to send me an email, I'd love to read it, info at hearing at life drama.com,
and I will put those that that on the show notes. Okay, two last questions. I lied. First one, you know that I love curiosity. It's my favorite thing. Two part question. One, do you believe that curiosity is innate or learned? And part two, what are you most curious about today?
I believe curiosity is innate. I believe we're born with it. I believe a lot of us were taught away from it and taught not to be that. Yeah, I'll leave that there. And then the second part of your question one
more time was, what are you most curious about these days?
I just love following. The next question. I just love following. So like this morning, I was working with my business partner, Linda, and we were writing blog posts for LinkedIn, and she had an idea, and it led to another question, another question, another question. I just love to follow. That that's what brings me so much joy and allowing myself, because that's really if you think about it, that's how we started. That's how we were as kids, and we just allowed
ourselves to follow that. And so that's really what I'm about working on now in my life, is allowing myself the joy of reconnecting with that, because that's really the moment, really, is what? Yes, yes, being in the moment, following that, allowing that, yeah, that's all really, really rich and good. I don't think it's any a curiosity, necessarily about any one thing. It's just about allowing it all to be there.
Well, in my experience of you, you are very good listener, and you pay attention to the details, and you're also a very good connector, and that's very that's a very special skill, and much appreciated, because I've met some interesting people through you. So that's really, really special. One last piece of advice from my audience, or something that you want to share
if you want to be remembered, listen,
okay, love it. Thank you. Deb,
this is so thank you really good. Janice, thank
you, and I always say at the end of my podcast to my audience, first of all, thank you, and second of all, stay connected and be remembered. Yes, thank.