00:05:40 Posture and Body Orientation 00:09:33 Eye Contact 00:10:54 A study led by Dr. Arthur Aron 00:11:53 The Power of Eye Contact by psychologist Michael Ellsberg 00:13:03 Kara Ronin’s “triangle technique” 00:13:41 Paralinguistics 00:15:08 The Four Ps of Voice 00:17:37 How to Improve Your Vocal Variety • When reading someone’s body language, pay attention to microexpressions, their overall posture and orientation in space, as well as their degree of eye contact. Paralinguistics refers to info...
Apr 11, 2023•25 min
https://www.audible.com/pd/B094NZS81Q/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWU-BK-ACX0-258377&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_258377_pd_us 00:02:54 “Stimulus Generalization as A Mechanism for Learning to Trust” by Oriel Feldman Hall 00:03:23 “Trust in Close Relationships” by Rempel, Holmes, and Zanna 00:03:56 More Is Better 00:08:59 “Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure,” researcher Robert Zajonc 00:09:43 Credibility 00:10:50 Gass and Seiter in their book Persuasion, Social Influence, and Compliance Gaining sough...
Apr 04, 2023•17 min
Hear it Here - adbl.co/3To6NDu 00:03:25 Feelings Are Never Right or Wrong 00:05:26 People Are Responsible for Their Own Feelings 00:07:30 Understand What the Goal of Communication Is 00:09:18 Applying Self-Knowledge and Asking for What You Want • Assertive communication is not about force or coercion (aggressive) or pandering and submission (passive-aggressive) but about speaking confidently from the heart. To achieve mature, healthy communication, remember that feelings are never right or wrong...
Mar 29, 2023•16 min
00:03:07 Can I just observe without judgment or evaluation? 00:07:41 Brian Grazer is the author of the bestseller A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life. 00:10:39 Type 1: Diversive Curiosity This refers to being attracted to novelty. 00:11:03 Type 2: Epistemic Curiosity Epistemology is the philosophical branch of inquiry related to the theory of knowledge itself. 00:11:51 Type 3: Empathic Curiosity The type we are interested in here. 00:14:16 Keep the Spark of Curiosity Alive 00:17:25 Resis...
Mar 21, 2023•39 min
Hear it Here - https://bit.ly/3GAwNag 00:01:58 Mirroring and Matching 00:03:03 In the 1970s, Richard Bandler and John Grinder introduced NLP 00:05:24 Way 1: Match and Mirror External Communication Cues 00:07:31 Way 2: Match and Mirror Voice and Language 00:12:16 Way 3: Match and Mirror Internal Communication Cues 00:16:56 Way 4: Match on Content 00:18:38 Way 5: Chunking • Good conversation is firstly about the degree of concordance, harmony, and synchronicity between you and the person you’re ta...
Mar 14, 2023•22 min
Hear it Here - https://bit.ly/ExtractInfo 00:04:28 Elicitation Practice If none of the above work, that’s where the practice of elicitation comes in. 00:08:15 Ellen Naylor in her 2016 book Win/Loss Analysis wrote about six specific elicitation techniques to get people talking. 00:08:27 Recognition Practice Human beings are social animals. 00:10:56 Complaining Technique This technique works with something else fundamental to human beings: how much we love to complain! 00:15:45 Naïveté Technique I...
Mar 07, 2023•29 min
Hear it Here - adbl.co/3To6NDu 00:01:27 In 2019, Matthew Berry and Steven Brown did research on the vocal tones 00:06:14 Jo Emerson is a confidence coach 00:07:10 Watch Your Body Language 00:08:33 Maintain Comfortable Eye Contact 00:09:26 Dress the Part 00:10:38 Develop Your Personal Sense of Poise • Assertiveness is something you can fake till you make! Be mindful of your body language (stand tall and take up space), maintain comfortable eye contact, fine-tune your personal sense of style (what...
Feb 28, 2023•13 min
Hear it Here - https://adbl.co/3shIydQ 00:03:35 Psychologist Dr. Ann Vertel uses reflective listening in her practice 00:04:35 How to Master Reflective Listening 00:13:48 Psychologizing—A Peculiar Kind of Invalidation • When we listen empathically and reflect, we go quiet and still within ourselves so we can receive as accurate a picture of the other person’s account as possible. We use mirroring and paraphrasing without questioning, leading, or starting a new thread. • We can reflect either con...
Feb 21, 2023•20 min
Hear it Here - https://bit.ly/3GAwNag 00:03:29 “But I thought you meant X!” 00:07:00 Preconceived Attitudes. 00:12:34 Judgment and Premature Evaluation. 00:15:11 Other Bad Communication Habits to Avoid. 00:17:12 Constantly Interrupting. 00:19:10 Using Qualifiers. 00:20:22 Equating Your Experiences. 00:20:27 “I know exactly how you feel!" 00:22:24 Waiting Instead of Listening. 00:23:14 Fluff and Filler Words. Barriers to good conversation include assumptions, strong negative emotions like anger a...
Feb 14, 2023•27 min
Hear it Here - https://www.audible.com/pd/B094NZS81Q/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWU-BK-ACX0-258377&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_258377_pd_us Asking questions is an active way to deliberately elicit information from a person, but they need to be targeted and not too obvious. A few seemingly casual hypothetical questions can reveal a person’s deeper values, perspectives, and goals, for example asking what their favorite movie is, what they would save from a fire, or what animal they see themselves as. ...
Feb 07, 2023•23 min
Hear it Here - adbl.co/3To6NDu • Everyone has a right to have boundaries. Try to reframe how you think of boundaries—they are there to protect and prioritize what’s important, and not shut someone out or offend them. Trust your own feelings and judgments instead of avoiding them. • State your boundary and don’t overexplain or ask permission. Then, if a boundary is violated, follow up with appropriate action. A big part of healthy boundaries is respecting other people’s boundaries, too. Show note...
Jan 31, 2023•18 min
• The best mindset to adopt in order to become a better communicator is the one that will best allow you to connect, meet your needs, solve problems, and express yourself. • Begin by asking yourself what your default communication style is: aggressive, passive-aggressive, or manipulative. None of these styles actually achieves the ultimate goal of communication, however. • The way you communicate is a choice. Assertive communication is the ability to express needs, wants, thoughts, and feelings ...
Jan 24, 2023•20 min
• Body language signals cannot be interpreted in isolation. Rather, first seek a baseline of behavior to help interpret a particular new observation – a baseline helps you identify incongruent behavior and spot a deception. • Look for mirroring, pay attention to overall energy, and remember that body language is dynamic, so you need to gather as much data as possible. Then consider this data in context of history and the current environment. • The voice is a part of the human body and speed, tim...
Jan 17, 2023•30 min
• Use mirroring, paraphrasing, or reflecting to show active listening. • Body language can be empathic too, and when your body mirrors another person’s, this is a way to show physical “active listening” of the body. • To show that your body is listening, face the person, make comfortable eye contact, and seek to concur with “yeses” or head nods. Then mirror their words, voice, posture, or other idiosyncrasies. • When mirroring, be mindful of the gender or cultural context, and only reflect what ...
Jan 11, 2023•18 min
One of the most useful tools in the people-pleaser’s survival kit is the ability to say NO. There are at least six different kinds of no to learn and practice: the direct no, the reasoned no, the reflecting no, the rain check no, the enquiring no, and the broken record no. Each can be used in different circumstances, according to the boundary you need to set. Whichever form you use, you’ll need to challenge your assumptions and beliefs about saying no and communicate clearly and confidently. Sho...
Jan 03, 2023•13 min
• Ex-FBI agent Joe Navarro has some tips for reading body language, and they come from an understanding that body language is inbuilt, automatic and ancient, and based on fight, flight or freeze response in humans. For examples, “pacifying behaviors” like covering the neck can indicate the person is trying to manage stress. • Note how the body is occupying space, and whether it is generally closed or open. Posture and gesture can tell you about whether a person is assertive, aggressive, uncertai...
Dec 27, 2022•20 min
• To listen effectively and empathically, we need to let our egos take a back seat so the other person can lead. If we are sensitive, alert, and respectful, we can listen without an agenda. • Listen with maximum attention without getting distracted by anything other than the perspective being shared with you in that very moment. • Seek to understand, not to judge, appraise, or evaluate—in fact, your opinion is irrelevant! Only your presence and awareness are necessary. Have radical acceptance fo...
Dec 20, 2022•22 min
• People-pleasers can be conflict avoidant, but this is actually a high-risk strategy, and you may gather resentments only to explode later (“gunnysacking”). Instead, use “and” instead of “but” in conversations, or try the “Five Whys” technique to get to the heart of what you’re really avoiding. Show notes and/or episode transcripts are available at https://bit.ly/social-skills-shownotes Learn more or get a free mini-book on conversation tactics at https://bit.ly/pkconsulting #Conflict #Gunnysac...
Dec 13, 2022•17 min
• It’s possible to extract loads of useful information from people merely by using the power of observation. • First, observe the face, tiny, quick and involuntary movements of the face can “leak” a person’s true emotions – there are six universal ones: anger, fear, surprise, disgust, happiness. Look for microexpressions that contradict what is said verbally. #Ekman #Macroexpressions #Microexpressions #Observing #PaulEkman #LookAtMyFace #RussellNewton #NewtonMG #PatrickKing #PatrickKingConsultin...
Dec 06, 2022•16 min
• Your perspective on life is what makes you unique, but it can also be a source of isolation, misunderstanding, and conflict. • A pre-conceived notion about who another person is may be the single biggest obstacle on the path to genuine empathy for them. Getting rid of bias is about more than guarding against sexism or racism and more about consciously choosing to remember that all people are united in their shared humanity. • Prejudice is pre-judging what another’s experience is and what it me...
Nov 29, 2022•43 min
In the face of trauma and conflict, some people respond with anger, some respond by fleeing . . . and some, like Person A, respond with a flood of appeasing, soothing, and conciliatory behavior. “Fight or flight” is an option for some people, but for those with a history of trauma, another option when faced with threat is to go into fawning mode and try to make it all better. Picture an animal defensively rolling onto its back, trying to appear as meek and agreeable as possible so that it’s spar...
Nov 22, 2022•13 min
• To rewrite our negative thought patterns, We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” • We can use the ABCDE acronym (activating event, belief, consequence, disputation, and new event) and explore the stories we’re telling in a thought journal. We can decide whether a new alternative is a good one according to its accuracy, helpfulness, and congruence with our values. • Once you’ve identified your current thoughts, ask if there’s a different way to...
Nov 15, 2022•1 hr 1 min
• Reading literature may actually make you a more empathic human being. It can reduce bias and prejudice and literally change your brain physiology. The key is in the ability to switch perspectives. • Choose literary fiction, preferably written in first person. Try authors who are different from yourself, or books about characters that are unlike yourself. • Read actively and engage with the story. Pause to ask questions to investigate the character’s point of view, switching perspectives and ex...
Nov 08, 2022•48 min
• Over-giving stemming from fear of rejection is not genuine generosity. Break the cycle by changing the core belief: “I cannot survive rejection.” Instead, court rejection deliberately and teach yourself that it doesn’t define you. Challenge your narratives with self-compassion, and focus on process, not outcome. Show notes and/or episode transcripts are available at https://bit.ly/social-skills-shownotes Learn more or get a free mini-book on conversation tactics at https://bit.ly/pkconsulting ...
Nov 01, 2022•18 min
• How you think creates your life; negativity poisons everything in your world. • Changing negativity requires a degree of metacognition (thinking about thinking) and a leap of faith to do something that hasn’t been done before. Anyone can change their thought patterns; it requires only honest awareness and a willingness to take conscious and inspired action. • Our mental shortcuts, assumptions, biases, and stereotypes are great at saving time and effort, but are not one hundred percent accurate...
Oct 25, 2022•50 min
• Empathy is about the ability to take another person’s perspective. It is similar to “theory of mind,” which is the human capacity to understand another person’s state of mind and comprehend that it is totally different from our own. Empathy is not only theory of mind but “theory of heart”—to feel other people’s emotions—and it’s hardwired into our brains and bodies. • Empathy is not about any particular situation, but about a unique individual’s perspective on that situation. • Though it is an...
Oct 18, 2022•32 min
• People-pleasing is a complex learned behavior, but it can be understood and changed. One of the most common underlying causes is the need to be liked. • We can counter this mindset by remembering we are like inkblots (i.e., what people see is about them, not about you) and understanding that your worth does not come from other people’s approval. • When you untangle yourself from other people’s opinions and judgments, you free yourself to ask what YOU want, what you care about, and what you val...
Oct 11, 2022•18 min
• To this end, we come to the concept of active listening. It’s a way to participate in conversations while being on the receiving end. Most might think that receiving simply means sitting quietly, but that’s a huge mistake. There are nine types of active listening responses we cover, to be used when trying to connect deeply with someone: comprehending, retaining, responding, restating, reflecting, summarizing, labeling emotions, probing with leading questions, and silence. • Oversharing may see...
Oct 04, 2022•55 min
• One quick technique is misdirection, where a statement has two parts: the first is expected and ordinary, the second contradicts it with unexpected and comedic results. Sarcasm can be powerful but is best when directed at yourself and used with those you are more familiar with. Ironic humor is similar to sarcasm, but more focused on the observation of the contrast between the expected and the actual. • The world of improv has a lot to teach us about good conversational chemistry. One improv ru...
Sep 27, 2022•1 hr 4 min
• Being charming is about developing social awareness and conversational intelligence. Much of this depends on empathy, and being able to step outside your own reality bubble and honestly see your own blind spots in conversations. • Try not to ever assume that other people think, feel or believe as you do, or that their conversation experience is the same as yours. “Double click” on what they share with you and be genuinely curious and open minded, rather than making assumptions and guesses. • C...
Sep 20, 2022•37 min
