It's part of the preparation for having radical listening conversations is how do we find what it is we need even prior to engaging with others. So there's something about meeting our own needs. I see links to mindful practices and just looking after our own well being. So there's something about making sure our own needs are met so that we can be fully present for others.
Today we have Robert Biswasteiner and Christian Vannuerberg on the Psychology Podcast. Together they are authors of the new book Radical Listening, The Art of True Connection. Robert and Christian are pioneers in the field of positive psychology coaching, and they bring their extensive knowledge base into this episode and into their new book. In this episode, we discussed the power of true listening, teaching listeners how to actively co
create meaning and connection with anyone. They present their framework for radical listening, which includes the art and science of noticing, quieting, accepting, acknowledging, questioning, and interjecting. I really enjoyed this conversation with two people who I hugely respect. In fact, I consider both of them important mentors of mine in the coaching profession. What the world needs right now is more true listening, so I was glad to speak with them. So now I
bring you Robert Biswasteiner and Christian van Nuerberg. Robert and Christian. Woww welcome to the Psychology Podcast.
Thank you so much.
What a great welcome.
Yes, yes, it's been a long time, a long time in the making, so I'm glad we're finally able to do this. And congratulations on your new book, Radical Listening The Art of True Connection. How did this book idea come about?
Christian?
Yeah, thanks so much. I'm so excited to be here with Scott Barry Kauf. And one of the things I was just thinking about is we all have these names that have three initials, SBK, CVN, RBD, So delighted to be here.
You know.
One of the reasons this book came about, as Scott, is because Robert and I have wanted to work together on a project right before well actually during the pandemic, we found that we weren't meeting up as we were regularly at conferences and things, and we were looking for some kind of joint project and we started doing some online training and out of that we started gathering insights about listening and it was one of those projects where I thought, maybe there's an opportunity here to work and
learn from Robert.
Yeah. Absolutely. It's a really unusual approach to writing a book, and that I think that mostly people have like a burning desire to write about their topic.
You know.
Oh, I've been read Searching well Being for twenty years, so it makes sense that I would write a book about it. And that was not the case here. We didn't sort of feel pregnant with this idea. We were just talking about interactional styles, conversation, acknowledging people, politeness, are just everything about communication, and it's sort of emerged out of that and it took us by surprise.
Oh I love that. Well, before we double click on all the things that took you guys by surprise, let's back up a second and can you to introduce yourselves to our audience a little bit. Robert, can you start with you and we'll go then and go to Christian. Just talk a little about who you are.
Sure it's great, Hi everyone, Thanks for spending your time with us. I am Robert Biswasteiner. I am a well being researcher. I've been studying happiness for about twenty five years. And I'm not just interested in understanding psychological phenomenon but also intervening in them to help people live better lives. So I am a coach, a coach, trainer, and interventionist, and an occasional author as well.
Thanks so much, Scott, and I'm so delighted to be here on this show and sharing these moments with you. I'm Christian van Nuberg. I'm an academic and author and executive coach, and I think the thing that's been driving me is real curiosity. Scott. I've just been curious right from the outset, and my curiosity has always been in relation to coaching. What is the intervention? What is the
thing in coaching that's really having these transformational impacts? And I've been so curious, is it the coach, is it the intervention? And if it's the intervention, what is that intervention? And the radical listening probably emerged from that where I was thinking, you know, in coaching and other empowering conversations like this, the thing that's really making the difference is the quality of our listening.
Yeah, thanks Christian. Both of you two are two of my favorite coaches in the world. Just so you know, Robert MS Wasdener. I did a big book of my coaching training with Robert, and Robert, you are, I guess, the founder of positive psychology coaching. Would you say you're one of the founders of that field, of the entire field. Each I talked a little bit about what is positive psychology coaching.
I would definitely say I'm among the pioneers. I don't know if I would take full credit for lifting the entire field. But positive psychology coaching is essentially an approach to coaching. So coaching is working with people to make positive change in their lives, to engage them and self directive learning, and hopefully through these insights they can create better plans, hold themselves accountable for behavior change. And it's just a form of coaching that is influenced by positive
psychological science. So we use our knowledge of well being, research, strengths, optimism, motivation to guide the kinds of supportive conversations that we have.
Yeah, and listening and presences is part and parcel of being a good coach, no matter what the coaching orientation.
Right absolutely In fact, if you think, and this goes beyond coaching, but if you think, what would a good therapist be what would a good coach be. You'd probably think that they would have a certain way of being. They might be empathic, for example, or they might be curious something that Christian mentioned before. Any of those things that you think someone should show up with, curiosity, confidence, assertiveness, compassion, respect,
those are going to be positive psychology topics. That is, positive psychology is going to have researched them and given us some insights into them. Another way of saying that is to show up fully in a conversation in the most positive way. Is itself people at their best?
Yeah? And what if you want to show up in a positive way and you also are having a debate with someone. Let's say you're showing up and this is the outside of coaching context for a second, But just like if you're having a conversation with an uncle who was a very different political view from you, how can you still show up in a positive way and still be assertive in your own value system?
Thanks so much, Scott. That's a great question and it is something that we tackle in the book Radical Listening. One of the ways we do that is think about what are the barriers to listening. And one of the barriers to listening, of course, is wanting to prove that we're right. So I think when we have we meet with people from with different perspectives and different views. One of the ideas in our book is really to be intentional about the type of listening that we're going to do,
and if the purpose is to build connection. If our intention is to build connection, that will help us to think about what are the best ways of listening. So I think I'm really intrigued about those situations when there's so many barriers who are listening, but it's really important to maintain a relationship. And that's when I think some of the ideas in our book Radical Listening play a part.
I think Christian just said something really important, which is if your intention is connection, and so often that's not our intention. And so I think one of the core ideas is that when we listen, we listen with intention, and that there are so many intentions.
So sometimes our intention is to convince someone else that we're right. Sometimes the intention is to validate the other person. Sometimes it's to connect with the other person. But it makes a big difference what your intention is because that will guide everything downstream. It will guide what you pay attention to, how you pay attention, how you respond to
what the other person is saying. So with your uncle and mine, Scott, and I don't know if it was your uncle or just someone's uncle who has different.
So everyone has that uncle.
Yeah, I mean, if what you're trying to do is say wow, you know what, I'd really like to learn about how they arrive. It's such a different stance than the one I have. That's going to kind of lead you to interface in a different way than I'm listening to just reinforce my idea that this guy's in Chirk, or I'm listening to just re butt everything he says and tear it down with my own arguments. Those will just be very different conversations.
Yeah, that's a really good point. And it just seems like our cultural climate right now is not one of listening. It feels like listening is a radical act in and of itself. Not that you're talking about radical listening, but I think listening can be radical just in certain contexts. But you do use the phrase radical listening. Can you just explain a little about like the what is the construct radical listening? How's it different from just normal every
day listening? Centrist listening. How does centrist listening different from radical listening?
Christian?
Yeah, So we we've called this radical listening for a number of reasons. One is the one you just talked about that highlighting the fact that listening itself can be an intervention and it's not a solution to everything. But we see that listening can be used as the starting point for creating dialogue. So the idea of listening as a way of building connection, we think that's kind of a radical idea. The other aspects of what makes it
radical is that we move beyond you know, active listening. Scott, this idea that really active listening to us sounds that it's almost reactive listening. You know, it's lots of strategies to look like we're listening, where with radical listening we want to be equal partners in the conversation. We see radical listening as proactive, so, for example, the thinking of our intention even before we go into a conversation, so that you're going in with almost a plan of I
want to listen with this in mind. And the other radical part is we suggest that we suggest interrupting. We talk about interjections and asking questions. So this is a form of listening, where as the listener, you are a full participant. You're fully present, you're fully engaged, You're in there, not just like a sponge taking in information, which is sometimes how we think about listening, but really being an active participant. So that's why we call it radical listening.
We keep going back to the idea that there are different intentions for listening, and I think that that hopefully feels fresh to people because listening is so often construed as sponging up or just taking in or just hearing. But if you sort of prepare yourself to say I'm listening in order to validate my friend, well realize that
that's going to that's going to guide your attention. So when you listen to validate someone, you're paying more attention and placing greater weight on emotional expression, on posture, on words. Whereas if you're listening to solve a problem, you're probably listening for procedures, key components, things like that. If you're listening to connect with someone, you might be listening for
shared interests or experiences or hobbies, things like that. So knowing your intention right up front, it directs your attention like a spotlight. So intention intention leads to attention, and you think you're just paying attention to everything, but you're not. You're just taking a specific slice out depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
Yeah, that's so well put. And I see so many linkages here between as particularly your section part one on internal listening skills you have noticing, quiet, and accepting. I noticed so many similarities between those chapters and Carl Rodgers' notion of active listening. And he has a little kind of like a forty page book which I have somewhere in my bookshelf called active Listening, which there's so much packed into forty pages that I've never seen so much
packed into. But I really, I really see a lot of similarities between unconditional positive regard that notion and these three skills. Do you see the similaries as.
Well, Yes, exactly, Scott, and I know that this is an area of great interest for you as well. And one of the things Robert and I have been talking about when working on this book is how Carl Rogers and his work has not been given the credit it deserves. So absolutely, a lot of the necessary and sufficient conditions. For example, that Carl Rogers talks about, which is about creating the ideal environments for other people to do their
best thinking. So I think radical listening is also about thinking about what is the environment that's most conducive to the person we're listening to to do their best thinking. And that's where the skill of quieting, for example, comes in.
And of course it's the quiet in terms of trying to prevent distractions and noise from interfering, but we also think about how the listener needs to be able to quiet what's going on internally for them as well to create the space where we're really present for the other person. And you know, we all experience this in the busyness of today. Being listened to can feel beautiful, you know. And I think what's exciting about the idea of radical
listening is it's not a formal thing. We don't have to set aside ninety minutes for a radical listening conversation. It can happen in two or three minutes. It can be a ten minute. But as Robert was saying, the difference is the listener goes in with a clear intention upfront, and our argument is that if we match the listening to what it is the person is looking for. That's what starts to build that connection, and then of course we can build on that connection. It's almost like a
gateway to dialogue. And you're right that the dialogue is something that you know, I think a lot of us are yearning for more opportunities for dialogue.
Yes, it seems like the flow of radical listening, the kind of I would say of it resembles an improv yes end session. There's a lot of sort of yes ending going on. I feel like the opposite of radical listening has a different cadence to it. It's one where that's more it's not flowing. It's like no, no, no, you know, do you know what I mean? Am I making sense at all? Yeah?
Absolutely, there's a kind of a profound respect. I think that that's at the core of radical listening. And I like that Christian just said essentially, like, think about a time that you were listening to and what did that feel like? And often how rare an occurrence that can be because we're in this pretty time starved world. For me, one of the surprises that came about in writing this book was when we were talking to one another about
how there are all these obstacles to listening. And I started thinking about all the times that people said to me things like, oh, Robert, I only have five minutes, walk with me, or come with me, come with me to my next meeting, because it's you know, only got two minutes. And kind of how bad that felt to me that they were kind of saying, my next meeting is more important than you, but I'll just kind of
like wedge you in along the way. And I started thinking how much more powerful it would be if they said, I have a meeting in five minutes, but you can have my undivided attention for four of those and then I have to leave, And just how different that would feel, like you have everything from me for four minutes, and if that's not enough time, fine, we can schedule something. But if that is enough time, you've got me. And
just having someone's undivided attention it is a gift. And going back to Carl Rogers, I think that's exactly what he was doing. Was so fully giving of himself and it had such a profound effect on his clients.
Oh, I love that. Can we double click for a second on Quiet because I'm low key obsessed with this one and I think there's a whole I'm a real big fan of highlighting and spotlighting researchers and research that is not as well known in the general public. And I really want to give some props to Heidi Wayman and her incredible research program on the quiet ego, which just you know, a lot of people don't know about
that research program, but I think it's really powerful. And I saw some linkages when I read your chapter on quiet, the importance of quiet and sort of and Heidi's research on the quiet ego of whorring. If you see some winkages there as well, you could talk about.
Yeah, absolutely, And I think sometimes when you create these frameworks, you know, some of the boundaries are fuzzy. So we have this whole section on internal quiet, and then we have a whole section on accepting the other, and I think there's some bleed between those. You know that there's a little bit of overlap. And one of the things that I think is is sort of core to both of them is the idea of having some intellectual humility
that is quieting your own ego. So if you don't have the main character energy, you think, I'm a supporting character in this conversation, at least while I'm in the role of listener, and I can recognize that even if my uncle disagrees with me politically, he has a right to his opinion. He has a wealth of life experience. He might not share my values, but he's an intelligent person who arrived at his own conclusions. That's a huge
piece of mental gymnastics for most people. But if you believe that your own lived experience is valid, then the logical next step is that other people's lived experience is valid, even if it runs counter to yours. And so I think that there is sort of a challenge for all of us to adopt increasing amounts of intellectual humility and recognizing the limits of our own way of thinking and the potential validity of other people's way of thinking.
Well, we talk about three different aspects of the skill of quiet. One is this inner quiet, and I actually love this idea Scott of inner quiet. It's part of the preparation for having radical listening conversations is how do we find what it is we need even prior to engaging with others. So there's something about meeting our own needs. And you know, I see links to mindful practices and just looking after our own wellbeing. So there's something about making sure our own needs are met so that we
can be fully present for others. So this whole arena ofping that inner quiet. But inner quiet also involves becoming aware of our own self talk how is that helping us? What are different ways that we can think to ourselves so that what's going on in our own minds isn't getting in the way of our presence. So there's a lot about inner quiet and the quality of presence that we can provide. Now that's almost nowadays as we're saying
a gift. If I'm able to provide my full and undivided attention, that feels like a gift, But that does require understanding my inner game if you like. Then there's conversational quiet, And for me, Scott, this is about firstly slowing things down a little bit, maybe even in the way we speak, And you were talking about cadence, to bring a kind of a calm to the conversation, and that includes increased use of silences, perhaps more pauses. And for me, there's a way of bringing that kind of
conversational quiet that shows respect to the other person. I'm not rushing to jump in with something. I'm allowing for pauses between conversations. You know, in coaching, we would talk about this sense of spaciousness. I would love my conversational partner to feel they've got space to think and reflect and share ideas, that we're not hurried. So there's some kind of unhurried quality that comes with conversational quiet. And then environmental quite is the one that we most often
think about, but that's just being thoughtful about. Is the
environment we're in conducive to high quality conversations. But that might mean I turn off my phone, or I put my phone away, or if my watch is about to be you know, I think acts like that where I say, let me just put my phone away, or I look like I'm muting my watch or whatever, that gives an indication to our conversational partner that we care deeply about what it is they're going to say, and that we're trying to minimize the distractions that could be Even in
we're sitting in a coffee shop and I might say, should we sit in that table over there it's a little bit quieter. I think these are all signals to the other person that we appreciate and value them. So you know talking to you is wonderful, Scott, because what's coming up for me now is that radical listening is one of the most respectful ways of communicat with others.
It sure is. And and when you integrate all these things you're talking about quiet, noticing as you just talked about noticing a little bit. And then now I want to double click on accepting. When you integrate these three you get what emerges is a dynamic system of such a nerd. But it's it's really, it's really awesome, the accepting part. I think people get hung up so much when they hear Carl rodgers notion of unconditional positive regard. And this is the way I interpreted what he meant.
And I would love to hear your thoughts and how you link it to your idea of accepting. Accepting doesn't mean liking. Carl Rodgers made it very clear that accepting doesn't mean that you approve or that you don't want to change. But as he said, he has a great quote. He said, the curious paradox is that I can't change until I accept myself. That once I accept myself, then I can change that's his uh, really one of my
favorite quotes of his. So it really is about just validating someone's experiences as real and as existing as it is, and that even just that process of validating that can lead to some extraordinary changes. And that's really the way I interpret Carl Rogers and the way I interpret you guys as well, when you use the word accepting. So tell me how I did there in trying to be a mirror to you, guys.
I'm going to give you an A I thought you said great.
Not an A plus only because I'm going to add to what you said.
But I agree. I think that the stumbling block for most people is thinking that accepting equals agreeing with or liking, and it's not that. In thinking about accepting, I was wondering, what is it that we're accepting, And one of the things is what you just pointed to. Broadly speaking, I would say it's the person's perspective or point of view. So that could be their opinion, it could be their emotional state, kind of saying, I get that you have a right to think and feel the way you do,
even if it's completely opposed to me. I can just accept the legitimacy that you have thoughts and feelings, but that's not the only thing we're accepting. In addition to that, we also accept situations. I accept the fact that you and I are having an argument. I accept the fact that there might not be a solution to this problem. I accept the fact that I might not be able to ultimately get what I want, or even to be able to influence an outcome. So some acceptance of situational factors.
A third one is accepting our own personal limitations, and that's a bugaboo for many people just because it's difficult. We all want to think highly of ourselves. But just accepting that I can't see everything here or that I'm going to be biased in this process. And then I think the fourth is just accepting sort of pragmatism as
opposed to a utopian vision. We all have this ideal deal or perfection in mind that what would what would be, uh, you know, the most awesome outcome possible, and then usually there's some compromises to be made. So just having having some accepting that that there's what works in addition to what's utopia and those those that's not a complete list, but I would say, those are four different types of things that you might be working to accept.
Well, what great, I see why you didn't give me an a plus? There was there was a lot that was that was really rich and really really added a lot of the kind of nuance that I've been really yearning for in this world. And and uh and of course in the coaching profession. So you know, this book he wrote is not just about coaching. Obviously, this is
for everyone. This book is for everyone. But I am really interested in coaching, and I was wondering if you have some you know, just specific techniques on applying these internal listening skills as a coach. You know what we do with a lot of coaches listening to this podcast.
Do you have any advice for them on some very specific tangible ways of being in their coaching practice that allows them to kind of show demonstrate the integration of these three Not anyone in particular, but what does it look like when you have all three integrated in a coaching session?
Well, Scott, first of all, I do want to give you an a plus for but it's for being a radical listener. And I'm going to digress for a moment, so I apologize but you are being a radical listener here, and I guess you have to be to have such a successful podcast. And it's when you said, look, I'm a bit of a nerd here. That's exactly. You seem to be hugely interested in what we've written about. And
that's really at the heart of radical listening. I would add being interested and not looking interested or not sounding interested, but genuinely being interested. And when we talk about uncles, I think it's really being interested in them as a human being and bringing that curiosity and saying, I wonder
you know where these ideas come from. Tell me more about how have you come to this view and being really curious about that, and then believing that that curiosity and that genuine interest in the other person builds that connection that we keep talking about as a bridge for them to be more open. Then for well, what's it like for the person who's listening to me and know, Scott,
I grew up in a war zone. I grew up in Beirut during the Civil War where people were literally killing each other because of differences, right, So there would be checkpoints and military type checkpoints where they would look at your ID and if you were the wrong religion. They might take you out of the car and shoot you. That's what was going on. And I grew up in that environment where I think that's when I started realizing you have to listen well, even as a survival mechanism.
You know, you have to be really alert and aware of what's going on. But fortunately in that country, in Lebanon, the civil war ended, and I do think that part of what allowed that to happen was some radical listening where people were able to try to understand how come you were, you know, shelling us from where you were living and our people were selling us from where we
were living. That and when you think about all places where conflicts have somehow been resolved, I just feel that radical listening, that ability to say, look, I understand that you must have your reasons for what it is that happened, and I'm curious and I'm prepared to listen to that. So I just love this idea that listening is the starting point. And what I love is that this is something we can all do. And like you said, Scott, this is a book for anyone, and it's something we
can start doing tomorrow or today. And sometimes I think it might have the greatest power with those closest to us. So that's just a little bit of an aside. But to come back to your question integrating these internal skills, what does it look like in coaching, Well, in coaching, it is what the International Coach Federation probably calls presence. When they talk about presence, it's that ability to listen
in a non judgmental way. I would say, so that's your right scote to turn our attention to what does it feel like for the client perhaps if we're talking about coaching, and that might be a helpful way of moving away from competencies to say what's the impact we want to have? And I do think the impact is that the client feels seen, valued and heard.
So that's a.
Really important part of this. The other thing we want them to experience is that it's their time. We really want them to feel that this time is your time, it's your time to have a voice. And so we're listening in a way that encourages people to have a voice. We're listening in a way that shows that we're genuinely interested in them as human beings. We're listening in a way that makes them think what I have to say
is important and all of that. For any of that to work, Scott, I would say it has to be genuine, So it's genuine interest, genuine care. And I don't normally like this word, Scott, but I'm going to use it anyway. You've made me feel safe. I'm going to use the word love here, but that feeling, oh oh, it's the four letter word. I've wrote it in already. But it's
a sense of loving people as a human being. And even though you may have a different opinion, even though you may think things that I disagree with, I respect you as a human being and I respect your right to have those opinions. And you know, there's a risk we're going to get diverted into talking about unconditional positive regard again. But my view on that, Scott, and this is my nerdy topic as well, is that it's so
important to recognize what a high bar that is. It's such a high bar to think about unconditional positive regard because so much regard that is in the world at the moment is conditional. But if we can aim for that, and I don't think I'd ever attain it, but I would go into conversations trying to have the lowest possible conditions to say, let me keep my conditions as low as possible so that that person feels value on her.
Yeah, it's wonderful. I of course agree with all that. I keep my head keeps going back to what the mergent prop is of all these things you talk about, because it's not so clear cut to me what is internal and what is external, Because what is internal is external a lot of ways. If I'm sitting in front of someone and I hate this person as much as I want to fake it, it's going to come through.
You talk a lot about genuineness. You didn't use the word genuin genuineness, but I think that's an understudy topic in the field of positive psychology. It's just hard. You know, the internal is the external. You know a lot of ways, like changing your internal state, you know. So for people who we found our own research, for instance, I'll give you this example, what the world am I talking about?
We found that people who score low in self acceptance tend to be the most judging people on this planet. They don't accept anyone else. They are just the people that don't like themselves tend to not like anyone else. So we found when I was constructing my Characteristics of Self Actualization scale, I found the correlation and was so high between self acceptance and other acceptance that I had to collapse it as a single factor, which I just
called acceptance because I couldn't distinguish between the two. So anyway, I just wanted to bring this up because you do have a section internal listing skills, externalisting skills. But I'm just trying to think of the interplay between all six of these things.
It's a great, great question or way to delineate commentary.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I don't think we're suggesting that never the twain shall meet. I mean there's going to be some overlap. But when we think internal, right, and there are things like quieting yourself being, having an accepting attitude, we're juxtaposing that with the so called external that you can think of external the way we frame it as verbal. Then they're a little counterintuitive because they're aspects of listening that are actually talking. So interjecting, asking a question, acknowledging the
other person and are all parts of listening. But weirdly you're speaking when you do it. So when we are talking about external, we are limiting ourselves specifically to instances in which the listener speaks as a form of listeners.
And could I jump in Scott apologies, You've got me all excited about this idea and I'm one hundred percent with you about internal and external. And what I love about some of the simple ideas we share about radical listening is that underpinning that is the idea of working on oneself right. So I love the idea that in order to be accepting of others, one of the things we can be doing in the background is being more accepting of ourselves, and like compassion, being compassionate of others,
I think the same applies. We need to apply self compassion. So there's a thing about in order to provide the kind of listening that you want to give to others, what do you need to do for yourself? You know? And the reason I've gotten excited about positive psychology because my route into this has been through coaching, you know, it was coaching psychology. And then the thing that was missing for me in coaching psychology is enough attention to well being. You know, what can we do so to
look after the well being of ourselves and others? So I also love the idea that as we start to be more intentional about the way we listen to others, it might invite us to do that internal work that we're talking about. So, you know, if I hate somebody,
it's very difficult to listen to them. But what can I do so that I don't hate them so that I you know, because I think you're right, if you're talking some do you hate that internal noise is definitely going to get in the way, and if we're genuine, it's going to seep out and people are going to notice it. But is there anything I can do to work on myself so that I have more compassion to other people? And so to give a practical thing here
for our listeners. You know, a little mantra I have in my head is everybody is always in the middle of something. That's what I say to myself when I encounter I have an interaction where it's less than ideal. I'm thinking, I don't know what that person's going through right now, and I have to bring some compassion to it. But that would mean I need to be compassionate to myself as well.
Oh boy, yeah, that's really good because you're recognizing that there's two aspects of that. There's one aspect of that is self compassion, saying, well, even if I slip up and I'm really not the best listener in this moment, I'm going to give myself some love because I have so much on my mind right Like, you can't always be a radical listener when you have fifty thousand things competing for your attention. So I feel like that's one
part of it. And then I feel like the second part of that is having compassion for others who seem like they're not in the moment with you, and actually meeting them where they are. I think can be a great listening skill. Does that make sense? Not being like, oh, how dare they not be a radical listener, but actually meeting them. It is being like, hey, it looks like your mind is really elsewhere right now. Let me join you where you are. I feel it can be a radical listening skill.
Absolutely, I think Scott, that's a great way to put it, because the things we outline are easy to write and hard to do, and you know, I we're only.
Being radical listeners us you everyone some fraction of the time. We're just trying to improve that overall quotient of better listening. But I do think that. I mean, I love this idea that everyone's in the middle of something, or just the forgiveness that comes with you know, you're busy right now or you can't focus right now, and that's not what I want, but I can meet you there. I can accept that that's the case.
Yeah, I do love the idea of including ourselves in everybody's in the middle of something, including myself. And we were talking earlier about you know, listening and not listening and how it can feel not to be listened to. But I think there's a category even worse than not being listened to, and that's half listening. And what I mean by that is somebody says to us, yeah, I'm kind of yeah listening to you tell me, but they're not really listening. And I'm going to be very open
and honest. You know, I've been very curious about this, as I was saying, for many years, because I've been training people to be coaches and for over a decade, and there was a time when I was teaching something about listening and then my son came home from school and it had been a long day. I've been in the middle of stuff. I'd had emails that I didn't like, and my son comes in. I opened the door and
I'm like, hey, how is school today? But half listening because I'm thinking I need to get back to my emails. I've got other things going on. And I think he said, oh, I was playing a sport and I fell down and hurt myself. And I'm like, oh, good good, I'm glad you enjoyed it or something. And for that moment now, but in that moment, I thought, what am I doing?
You know, this is one of the most important people in my life, if not the most important, and I know about this stuff, and here I am half listening. And the reason I don't like half listening, I think it's the worst is at least when somebody's not listening, you know that. But the half listening is wait, I thought they were listening to me, and they've kind of led me down here. So that's just something where I
think some of the ideas of radical listening. I mean, we wrote this book thinking of a professional audience at some of the time, but it's a lot of it applies in our maybe in our closest relationships as well.
Scott, do you mind You've just used this great phrase of meeting someone where they are. Do you mind if I ask.
You a question? Oh? Absolutely, I don't mind. I don't mind.
I mean, it's interesting because you're turning to us. We wrote a book on it, we have some expertise. But you're a professional listener. As someone with a show like this, you're doing hundreds of hours of interviewing and it's very specific kind of listening. And I'm curious what you've learned about the listening process just in doing this.
Well, a lot of things I've learned really do dovetail with the things you talk about in your book, you.
Know, the questioning, the being, you know, being careful, like when you're interjecting the art of interjecting right, Like there is an art to it. What I've I've done this ten years, you know, we just had our tenth year anniversary, and congratulations, thank you, thank you. Wasn't fishing for that, but I'll take it. Yeah, But after doing you, after doing so many interviews, you start to rely on intuition and you realize that there is a feeling, there is
a cadence. I use the word cadence earlier, and so I'm just going to bring that back. I feel like I learned, I've learned to trust the cadence of a conversation without needing to force the cadence. And I think that's something that just I've internalized. So it's it's just so intuitive now after ten years. It's not like I
started off with that internalized. But I'm saying, you you talk to enough people, you realize that conversations have a certain have different cadences to them, some which are more facilitative and to connection and to a real conversation, and some more conducive, some more jerky, you know, So we can we can kind of we can kind of like map out, you know, maybe like twenty to thirty different different kind of cadences in a really kind of a
nerdy way. I bet we could come up with that if we kept talking, I could, you know, talk about thirty different signs. You know, there's the there's the angry one, there's the there's the the neutral one. There's a kind of conversation where neither party is particularly interested, you know, and then you know, and to the right, so you have a whole whole bunch to the left side of zero, a whole bunch to the right side of zero.
M. I can keep going on, but that's that's my answer.
It's fascinating. I hope there's a publication coming out of this because I.
Think let's collaborate.
Yeah, absolutely, map mapping conversation sounds like the next step.
This kind of conversation is the kind of conversation Robert and I love, and that's where the book came from because we had so many conversations. Like you'll see in our book, we've got levels of acknowledgement. It came from this kind of conversation of Okay, well there's a middle and in our case it's called flatlining, and there's lots of acknowledgment, which is positive acknowledgment. Then we thought, well, you can less acknowledge a bit less or not acknowledge,
or be the opposite of that. And so I'm very intrigued about this idea, and I love the idea of kind of something that would be useful for people, which is what kind of listener are you or what kind
of listening interaction is this? And I love the oh, this is an angry one, this is an aligned one, and it allows me to just think about the cultural context as well, Scott of you know, cadence and thinking about cadence in the city versus the countryside, or in Spain versus Norway, and those kind of and and that idea of intuition, which is based on many years of experience. That's an important thing being able to pick up in this context. This is the listening that's most helpful.
Yes, I love that. That's your The last part of your book is on the listening context, and you talk about how can we create a fertile ground for a radical listening? Do you you know, do you think that starts in education, like you think K through twelve? Could could, could could do something so that we don't have a bunch of man babies as adults. Sorry, I didn't mean to make that gender, but it seems gender these days for some reason.
People babies. Yeah, yeah, Yes, I have a big interest in education. I think that's why I got into coaching in the first place, just thinking, wouldn't it be great if we could provide high quality learning experiences for every person. So that's what got me into coaching. And it's a great question and for me, you know, I think there's something there about ensuring respectful conversations right through an educational system.
That's part of the fertile ground. You know, our teachers need to be listened to, they need to feel valued and appreciated. Our administrators need to be appreciated and value And I think that's the idea of the fertile ground. If we want our learners to have that kind of rich experience where people see things them that they don't see, that people are valued for their strengths rather than their weaknesses. My challenging comment is that has to be the same
right throughout the educational system. And that's what I'd love for us to be working on, is how can we bring this kind of respectful interactions right through educational systems? And you're right, that would be a good place to start is our K to twelve. But another good place to start is our professional organizations. You know, people in employment. Wouldn't it be great if they felt listened to, valued, appreciated. That would definitely increase engagement, it would increase well being.
So yeah, I'd love to start anywhere.
I would definitely add to that that I think listening should be taught in schools. I'm a big fan of the idea of teaching psychological and social skills, teaching emotion literacy,
but just teaching conversational skills. If you think about, for most people, the amount of time you spent studying trigonometry, geometry, calculus, or other higher forms of math relative to how much you use that math in your daily life versus how much time you spent studying listening compared with how much you actually listen in your daily life, you can see that it's disproportionately heavier on traditional academics and lighter on the skills that make up all day, every day of
what we're doing.
What a great point.
I mean.
We need to tell someone that, but like, no, what a great point.
Go ahead, well, Scott, you're you're allowing us to say this, So thank you so much for creating this opportunity. You know, I really do appreciate the work that you do. I just love that you're able to share these ideas, and I'm so grateful to you for inviting us along to talk about these things.
Thanks. Christian, you always show up with an amazing presence of humbleness and an openness. You do too, Robert, But I'm just immediately responding to Christian. Yeah, there is I think this conversation today felt good and it really worked because all three of us are genuinely interested in hearing what the other person has to say about a topic that all three of us are interested in. And I
think that's the key. Perfect storm, although that's a bad metaphor perfect, not storm, but perfect what a terrible metaphor.
It's a trifecta.
Yeah, yeah, that's right, So yeah, really great, Robert, is anything you want to add about about at a metal level?
I would like to go back to one of the comments Christian made early on, which is just to remember a time that you have felt listened to, or where someone slowed down or paid extreme attention to you, where they really demonstrated interest with their questions, or they gave you a true acknowledgment. Not just hey, thanks for sending over that report, but hey, thank you so much for all the work you put into it. I couldn't have done this without.
You, and.
Just what that feels like. And once you kind of remember that, you almost can't help but feel obligated to go out and do that for others.
Oh Man, I could agree more. Thanks to both of you so much for being on the show and I'm so glad. I can't wait to get this out there and help spread the word about your new book. Krats again, thanks again much