Level Up Your Listening Skills to Improve Your Podcast - EP 80

Listening with a discerning ear to process emotion is something AI will never be able to do. And actually, okay, maybe not never. I'm just personally hoping for never. Because if they do, this is where my fear of like, robots taking over the world can actually come true. So, okay, maybe not never, but I really do believe this is something that AI will not be able to process. Is that emoting, the emotion of it all.

So what I'm saying is that this emotional connection that we have as podcasters, as human beings, makes for such a better experience. It is that humanity of it all. So how are you listening differently as a podcaster? Let's take a dive into listening as a special skill that we have as podcasters. This is episode number 80 of The Podcaster's Guide To A Visible Voice. << WOMAN SINGS: So so so so let’s go >> Welcome to the show. Thanks for joining me today.

Here in Canada, we have English as our official language as well. So it's always like, would you like to continue in English? So speak slowly into the phone. Yes, I say, would you like support with Internet, TV, or home phone? Internet. I say again, into the phone. They ask me another prompt. Yes, I say, into the phone or, No. Yes. No. I go back and forth on this because it is not prompting for the thing I want. And at this point, you know, you've already spent a good five minutes chatting, sort of chatting, with this bot, this prompt that they have.

And since they are a business, they don't want you to cancel. So it's not easy to get to. I get that there was no option to cancel or an option to talk to a real human being. I was getting really frustrated at this point, and I started to scream really slowly into the phone, I want to talk to a real person. I didn't know if that would work. I did it anyway. And luckily it did.

The AI reacts all normal, as if I was not frustrated on the phone and said, sure, let me transfer you to a team member to help you out. Like, oh, gosh, thank you. And then you get a team member, a person, a real human being on the other end of the phone. And, you know, I don't mean to be angry. Its just that your waiting around. Maybe you've already been put on hold for a few minutes. And in this particular instance, I was actually transferred to three different people because they weren't understanding what I wanted to do based on that cancellation. There were some other things, and so it was a very frustrating experience for me.

So I'm at this point where I'm with this person, and again, I would like to cancel. And they say, oh, well, we would love your feedback before we cancel. And I'm like, I don't, I don't want to give feedback. Can we just cancel and get this over with? I want to just cancel my services and move on. Of course, they don't hear the undertone that I've already been on hold for 20 minutes. They didn't know that, that I've had to go through of ten minutes of finagling with that automated teller bot thing. And it's part of my work day. I probably spent a good hour overall on this one call that I wanted to make to cancel my services.

And this poor person, all they say on the other end, they're probably reading their script. They're like, I hear that you were frustrated, but I have to go through this process of questions of feedback before I can get to your questions. And I'm like, telling me that I'm frustrated just makes me feel more frustrated. It's an emotional backfire here. Long story short, I did end up cancelling. Great. Yay. And customer service is a really tough job. I'm really sorry for all the people who had to deal with me.

But I digress. What I'm sharing here is actually the difference between hearing and listening, whether in AI or human form, in that scenario. However, the person on the other end heard what I said. They heard it. But because they had their little follow up script. They weren't actually listening to what I was saying. Beyond the words.

So you're not really paying attention to all the sounds, but when you're actively listening, you're deciding to listen to certain aspects. When you decide to listen for certain things, those things come to the forefront. What I'm talking about here is active listening. Now, generally, when people hear about active listening, it has to do with conversations and listening to the person who is speaking with you. So, in the case of podcasting, listening to your guest and what they have to say, but also it can mean how they're saying something.

So let's actually take an example. Erin Moon, who was my guest on episode 77, she's an audiobook narrator. In that episode, she says this one line multiple times in different ways. I went down the street to get some milk. Now, when she was talking about the humanity of reading lines, she mentioned all those emotions.

You can say the line, I went down the street to get some milk and be really happy about it. I went down the street to get some milk. Or maybe she was upset earlier about something. So, fine, she'll go down the street and get the milk. Or maybe it had nothing to do with the milk, but sad about something else in her life, so she's distracted and, oh, yeah, I'll go and get the milk. You know, like, there's so many things that can be happening within the human body that AI will never, ever get, and then you get to hear that say it with your voice.

Or let's take a common podcasting scenario here. You're listening with headphones on for what is being picked up by the microphone. In a regular conversation, you laser in on the person that you're talking to, and you block out the outside noise. Like, I went to a networking event the other day, and it's loud, right? There's people talking everywhere, but you want to hear what this one person is saying directly to you, so you focus in on that.

The outside noise could be the people talking. If the window was open, there was a big truck driving by, the wind blowing through the window, the dog barking down the street, or maybe the air conditioner kicking in in the room. That's all happening in the background. And those same sounds could be happening while you're podcasting. But as a podcaster, are you listening for that? Because when you listen for those things, it impacts the overall sound of your show. The quality of your show can go down if you're not listening for certain things.

Too many times have I heard podcast interviews, whether it be with my own clients or just shows that I like listening to where I know they did not have headphones on. There's been more than one occasion where my clients did this. And then if they have recorded a video as well. So, like, if they're recording on Riverside or SquadCast, they have a video portion, and I get only the audio. I hear it, I'm like, I bet they didn't have headphones on, whether it be the guest or the client themselves.

I go look in Riverside and, aha. You did not have headphones on. I can tell. And I've been trained to listen for these things. But I also believe, subconsciously, when listeners are listening, they hear that, like, they know what Zoom quality sounds like now. And people's ears are very, very fatigued to this Zoom quality sound. And if they keep hearing that, they're not going to come back, or they might think, oh, I've been on so many Zoom calls, I don't want to listen to the show because it just sounds like another Zoom call.

Because what's happening here with the tech is if you are not using headphones or your guest is not using headphones, the noise cancellation algorithm kicks in because the sound that's coming out of your laptop is getting picked up by the microphone, and then you get this terrible feedback loop. You know, when you're in live events, you get that like, screech of the microphone, that feedback. That's what could happen with this. Like, it would just create an echo and a delay over and over and over again.

So what platforms like Zoom does, or Riverside or SquadCast, wherever you're recording online, they have noise cancellation features. When you do not have headphones on, because those headphones will stop the audio coming out of the laptop, being picked up by the microphone. Does that make sense? Okay.

Went on a little tangent there. That was a little side note. However, my point is, when you are wearing headphones, you are dialed into the sound of the show. All the background noises don't always get picked up by your microphone, but some do. And microphones are very, very sensitive, unlike your hearing. Your hearing might not be as sensitive until that mic starts recording. And then you're like, oh, I hear that door slamming next door. Oh, that was my kid running down the hallway. Oh, my dog's toenails are walking across the hardwood floors. Or, hey, I like talking with my hands, and I wear bracelets and I can hear the jangling.

You know, if you're the one wearing the bracelets, you might not be able to hear that because you're like, hey, I hear this all the time. My brain knows what the sound is, and it's normal sound for you. But if you are a guest on a show and the host has headphones on, they can hear the bracelets. The host is listening for that. They're going to say, hey, can you take the bracelets off for this interview? Because I can hear it's jangly, and let's not have that in the podcast. We want to make sure that you sound as clear as possible, and those bracelets can be a deterrent.

But would you have noticed that if you weren't listening for it? All these normally unassuming sounds gets picked up by your microphone and then amplified on the podcast. And most podcasters won't be able to take those out. You need some special software and audio engineering to remove certain things, like those jangly earrings. They hit the microphone on those earbuds. That's going to be really loud because it's scratching against the microphone, but you're not hearing that.

And if AI was listening to that, they might hear that scratch and think, oh, that's noise. We're just going to cancel that out, which means your voice will not get heard because AI is, eh, like getting rid of it. It's noise. Now, is it noise or is it your voice? AI doesn't know the difference. It takes the human ear to hear and to listen, process, and have that human brain to have that cognitive process in comprehending the emotional aspect and know that, hey, this is a human. I'm not going to noise cancel you.

Yes, AI is great in some ways. We've talked about it in previous episodes. In fact, I use it a lot for automation in the work that I do when helping with workflow. It wasn't called AI before, you know, it was just some technology that helped and support you. But now we can sort of interact with this technology, with these machine models. That's the change. That's the AI, the Artificial Intelligence.

Will these models change the way podcasting works? Sure. Yes, of course it will. It has already. How can it not? But my question is, how can we continue to do what we do, but leverage that AI so it doesn't take over? AI will never be able to listen like the way we do. You and I, we want that human emotional connection, that emotional level can never be replicated with all the nuance in the human voice and the brain processing power to uncover our feelings.

You know, another example, my daughter comes home from school, and, you know, you just ask the generic question, oh, yeah, how was your day? And she can either say, fine, yeah, it was good. No bit of cheer in her voice, or fine, yeah, it was good, with a bit of sadness in her voice. To a machine, that word is just fine. With no emotional context. Fine, it will move onto the next logical sequence in the script, much like that customer service rep that I had.

They don't really care and would like to move on to the next sequence of things. When we listen, as hosts, as podcasters, we get to deeper conversations. You can even say in your follow up question, oh, I can hear that sadness in your voice there. Tell me more about that. Or, wow, yeah, I hear that excitement in your voice. What was the turning point that made that all happen?

That's the fun part of podcasting, diving deeper into topics and figuring out what is this passionate, emotional sadness, grief, what is all of that? How do we express it? Using the creative part of our minds, by listening to what others have to say. I'm not saying you need to agree with every opinion. You know, everyone's gonna have a different opinion on things, but you're training your brain for more empathy and creating the ability to think differently, which can play a role in other parts of your life, you know, like, conflict resolution, relationship building.

There's actually a study by the JAMA Network Open. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right by the JAMA Network Open. They did the study in 2021 suggesting that supportive social networks reduce Alzheimer’s risk by enhancing cognitive resilience. It's a lot of science-y words for me there, but what this means for me in terms of podcasting, this could mean that the availability of social contact, you know, talking to people, emotional support, the listening, and the availability of supportive listening. So we're not just hearing, we're actually supportively listening.

Wouldn't you like to be a guest on someone's show who is truly listening to you? They would be helping you create a healthier brain. When someone is there to support you through listening. The study is suggesting that it can reduce that Alzheimer's risk and enhance cognitive resilience. It's making your brain healthy. Now, who wouldn't want that side effect?

But when I had my traumatic brain injury all those years ago, I couldn't hear properly. That concussion made it really hard, so I couldn't hear what was in the room, let alone the person standing right in front of me talking to me, one person. And I couldn't comprehend what they were saying. I lost all those spidey senses, and all the voices came in mumble, jumbled all at once, like at a volume of ten.

It's kind of like everyone had their own personal playlist. You know, they've got their musical playlist and they're playing it loud on their phones, on their public speakers, and that's all you hear, just random songs being all played at the same time, and you can't tell which song is which. It was really difficult to process, and my brain couldn't do it. I was so frustrated with that noise.

But after many years of brain exercises, cognitive therapy and rest, I went to a restaurant again, and my brain worked. I have that cognitive resilience. My spidey senses worked again, and it was amazing. I could hear distinct conversations across the room again and separate it from all the different noises, like the music in the restaurant, in the room, the hum of all the different people talking, the knife and fork pinging on dinner plates, to even like the beer glass touching down on a wooden counter at the bar, to yes, listening to that person talk to you from across the table.

I really do think training your brain to listen in very specific ways can improve the way you think and your overall health. I mean, I'm kind of throwing that out there, but there is that little bit of research too to go with it. So when you're podcasting, what do you hear? What are you listening for? You'll listen very differently now that you're a podcaster and that's a good thing. And your brain will probably thank you too.

So, that's another episode for another day. That's a whole tech thing, but AirPods, not so much. So as long as these headphones are wired, they're physical wired that you have to plug into your laptop and put them into your ears. That will work. So, the other side of this question, if you already wear headphones, what have you noticed? What are you hearing differently? What are you listening for? What are some initial things that you listen for in your room when you put on those headphones?

And then, yeah. Do you think you've got a little bit of spidey senses like me too? I would love to know. So are you camp headphones or camp no headphones? And again, no shame, no blame game here. Just curious. Let me know. Of course, email is always great [email protected] or drop me that voice note. You can find it on my website. It's the purple button that says, Send Voice Note. You can find it at visiblevoicepodcast.com.

So until next time, the next episode is gonna be another interview, one with a guest. And that'll be the last interview before I take my summer break of July and August and a little bit into September. So look out for that one and I will chat with you then. << GHOSTHOOD FEATURING SARA AZRIEL “LET’S GO” BEGINS >>

Thank you so much for listening to the podcaster's guide to a Visible Voice. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you share it with a podcasting friend. And to reveal more voicing and podcasting tips, click on over to VisibleVoicePodcast.com. Until next time. << WOMAN SINGS: Let’s go >>