Episode 8- Art of Effective Listening

In this podcast, the hosts discuss the importance of effective listening in communication. They emphasize the need to understand and empathize with the perspective of others. The stages of listening are explained as receiving, interpreting, recalling, evaluating, and responding. The hosts share personal experiences of struggling with listening and provide tips such as asking questions and speaking slowly. They highlight the role of communication in relationships, emphasizing the importance of staying connected and understanding each other's needs. The hosts also touch on introversion and extroversion and how they can affect listening styles. Overall, they stress the significance of active and present listening in all aspects of life. Hello, and welcome to the 60s in a podcast. Today we will be discussing the art of effective listening. My name is Agnes. I'm Cooper. You mine? I am, yes. I want to first talk about listening skills and how they're way more important than a lot of people understand. I have a lot of personal experience with listening to people or not listening and then the outcome being we end up either arguing or some type of misunderstanding because they weren't listening closely. And I think, personally, the best thing you can do in communication is just trying to understand a person, fully their perspective, and you can get the most out of that. I feel like it's very easy to misunderstand people when you don't have empathy in your conversations, in your communications. Understanding someone else's perspective is, I think, like you said, very key. And when it comes to misunderstandings and straight up fights and altercations, when it comes to communication, that tends to break down just because people are unwilling to take into consideration another person's viewpoint. I really think more of, like, when listening to someone, you have to keep in mind their thoughts, their feelings. You have to stay interested the more they talk and understand their thinking points, truthfully. Yeah, I mean, I want to start with the stages of listening because receiving, interpreting, recalling, evaluating, and responding, they all go into when you're listening to someone. And if you kind of mess up on one or multiple of the steps, you're most likely to have a misunderstanding. So receiving is when they're giving it to you, so when they're just talking. And then interpreting is trying to figure out what they mean by what they're saying. Recalling, remembering what they're saying. Evaluating, trying to exactly evaluate what you're going to respond with and then finally respond. So, like, earlier this week, I think I was talking to my sister. She does this all the time. She'll come up to me, and she will just talk about something. And I am so easily just, like, kind of, like, block her off just because I don't really want to talk to her at the moment. It's not really good for our relationship, and I realize that. Like, I'm struggling the most, probably, with a relationship with her because she'll come to me and talk to me, but I'm not really in the mood to talk to her. And so I fail at the receiving part because I am not actually actively listening or taking in what they're giving me. So that's the first step I oftentimes mess up on. But then when I actually do sit and listen to her, I'm receiving correctly. But then when I'm interpreting what she's saying in the wrong way, like not what she means, like if I assume she is talking about this thing that she didn't actually say she was talking about, that is a wrong way to interpret. You have to make sure, ask questions, you know, follow up. I think asking questions along is really important because if you don't ask questions, you could be missing a lot of information that you should need. Yeah, asking questions is really, really important. I think I usually struggle with the responding part a lot. I have ADHD, so whenever it comes to conversations, especially when I'm excited, I tend to speak faster than I actually think, which in return, I constantly trip myself up or just say things I entirely don't mean or that are wrong. I do that at work, too, which is really bad. I'll just straight up lie to people's faces because I don't listen. I don't hear their question properly or I don't think about what they're actually saying before I just blurt out an answer. Yeah, it really leads to some awkward interactions and situations. Yeah, I think we should all, when we're talking, just try to talk slowly. I mean, I'm not saying this in exact circumstances, but when you're listening to somebody and you respond, definitely just try to match your thinking, right? If you don't know what you're saying, just stop talking. Yeah, I struggle with that, with listening, truthfully. When I was in high school, I used to play football. I'm kind of an introvert, so I don't like talking to people who aren't really listening. I had to kind of work on that. Basically, the older I got when I became a senior and listening to coaches and that, it took me to really mature and understand what they were saying. They were only trying to help me, but me not listening, I was so defensive and reacting in the wrong ways. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, just definitely being present while you're talking. Sometimes, like when I'm talking to my sister, I'll pretend like I'm listening, kind of, which is called pseudo listening. And you're like, oh, yeah, nodding along, but you're not actually there. You're either thinking about something else or just not focusing. And so focusing along with the listening is really important. Just be there. Be present. Think about what they're saying as they're saying it so you can kind of combine the listening processes together to get the most out of it. For sure. I also think that in terms of relationships, I think communication is always one of the most important aspects of relationships. You hear it all the time. Communication will make your marriage successful or your relationship successful. Not only like romantics, but like platonic friends, all these things. They're all formed and strengthened by communication. It really is like the core tenet of relationships. Yeah, definitely. There are several different relationships I've had where I stopped talking to them or we stopped seeing each other. And then we just flat out stopped talking after a period of time. And then when we tried to get back into it, when we saw each other again, it really wasn't the same because we weren't communicating really well because we just didn't understand each other anymore. When you don't talk about yourself to other people, when you don't listen, it's really hard to stay in touch with them and understand them how they are because people are constantly changing. And if you're not there to listen to them, talk about their struggles or whatever, then you're probably going to find a lot of – you're going to come by a lot of different things where you don't understand the other person anymore because you stopped listening to what they were saying. Some people grow. Yeah. I've grown, girls. Truthfully. When it comes to me, I've been in a relationship for a year and a half, and me and my boyfriend, we've never really had any big fights. Truthfully, our sense of communication is really strong, and it really helps avoid any problems that arise that could – nothing's really threatened our relationship because we're able to talk with each other, understand each other's needs and feelings, and really just work through it together by communicating. And I think people will not focus on how they're able to talk and connect with their partner and just live with them because I'm like them, and it leads to problems down the road. Yeah, I came out of a relationship like that, and I would put it on myself more because I didn't listen. I told you, I'm an introvert, so I don't know. Sometimes I kind of shut down instead of just listening to them and understanding and putting their feelings and thoughts and everything involved. I just shut down, and that's something I had to work on myself. Yeah. Yeah, it's very important. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, I think we can talk about introversion and extroversion. A person who is introverted – both extroverted and introverted are different. They'll probably do different listening techniques. I personally am an extrovert, but I think I do still struggle with listening because I always want to be the one talking – or not always, but most of the time I'm the one who's trying to talk. I am. I am all the time. I think when you're an introvert, though, it's actually easier to not talk because you kind of want to be in the background. I have a lot of friends who are introverts, and I'll be talking to them, and I'll realize that they're talking like nothing. They're just listening to everything I say. And I ask them sometimes, like, oh, does it bother you that I never let you talk? And they're like, well, actually, I'm introverted. I actually prefer to just watch you just talk about things. Yeah. And it's all because – I don't know. It's like we have a side. I don't know. If it was to be that, I'd rather be at my house all day watching TV. I don't really like going out. I don't know. I try to get out of that, though, because I feel like it kind of holds me back in life. You know, sometimes you have to talk to people. As much as I don't want to, I force myself a lot because I know talking to a lot of people and networking, it helps a long way in life. Yeah. So, yeah, when you're in a relationship, definitely keeping that communication going. When you're listening to your partner talking about their relationships with other people, how they're feeling currently about anything, really. I feel like the really good relationships, the best couples, are ones that really don't have any secrets. Yeah. Because they've talked about – each of them both listen to what the opposite person is saying. Yeah, there really are no secrets when you try to just tell each other everything. And, you know, everything will end up coming out one way or another. And it's better to just be open, be caring whenever you're communicating with anyone, but especially someone like you love, your partner. And really trying to understand what each person needs is crucial. Yeah. Also, knowing a lot of different perspectives. When you are closed to knowing your own perspective because you refuse or are ignorant of other people's views of what they think. Like, if you are in a line of traffic and – I don't know, this is a random example. Like, you're in a line of traffic and you view yourself as the victim. Like, you're the one, you've been spending all day doing this thing and blah, blah, blah, all this poor thing about you. And they just want to be home or whatever. And they're just – they're only thinking about themselves. Like, what about all the other people in the car line of traffic, you know? They're probably struggling with the same thing. And it's not like you communicate with people in traffic, but being stuck to your own view of things. If you're willing to listen to other people, especially when they're victimizing themselves, it's okay to listen to them and say, yeah, life is hard, but that's for everybody. It's not just you. So just like, you know – but yeah, you have to be listening to other people, trying to understand other people's point of view. Because if you don't, you're going to be stuck in your own, like, I don't know, self-pitying stage where you're just sad about yourself and like, okay, bro, you just need to back up. What's going on? What's your view? What's your view? And then listen to them talk about whatever they think. Because it will surprise you to see what other kind of views people have on really random – it can be on anything. People have opinions about everything. Yeah, I love getting arguments. I'm a political science major, but also just any – I'll argue over anything. Best sandwich, white tomatoes don't deserve to be an edible food. Just other things like that. But in terms of, like, actual altercations – not altercations, like arguments and stuff, like, it's easy to get overexcited and sort of, like, cut people off, get, you know, more aggressive, not like – and just excited. Like, passionate. People are very passionate about the most random of things. Yeah. And you can find the hill to die on anywhere, I know from experience. And when it comes to these sort of situations, the best way of sort of keeping things calm, I guess, is effective listening and really, like, you know – there's a mutual respect when it comes to, like, not communications, but also, like, arguments. And having that sort of mutual respect where you can, you know, let each other speak, not, like, attack each other and, like, not interrupt really helps keep things, like, civil, keep things on track. Yeah, I actually really want to build off of that because when you're having an argument – if you're having a really good relationship or you're really close, you're bound to have arguments probably really often the closer you are. Okay. Personally, like, with my parents, like, you know, I live in the same house still, so I hear them argue all the time. And sometimes it really drives me crazy, but I know it's the way to keep them – they maintain their relationship the best when they're talking a lot. So when they're fighting about, like, the most random thing, like, who put the ketchup on the counter or something like that instead of in the fridge, like, the most random things, it doesn't even matter. But when they're fighting about those things, I know when they're fighting and one person keeps interrupting the other person, they have overall a worse fight where there's less progress. But when one person is willing to listen to the other person's perspective, even if it's literally about ketchup on the counter, then it will be, you know, more effective. They'll understand the view and say, okay, you were really good. You had to go down to work, so you had to put the ketchup in the fridge. There's more of an understanding when you listen. When people just argue and they're talking over each other, nobody's listening to understand what is the exact point the other is trying to make. It's just, I feel like I'm right, so I'm going to yell over you. And then the other person, I feel like I'm right, so I'm going to yell over you. But at the same time, y'all yelling over each other and have no idea what point each other is making. Nothing is actually happening. Like, it's no progress. Yeah, you have to be open, again, like I was saying before, you have to be open to the other person's perspective. It can be really, it's really hard to, though. Sometimes when, even if you actually are right in the situation, the other person is completely wrong, they will always have a reason for doing things. Like, even if it's a dumb reason. Yeah. I mean, it can be, it can be other things sometimes. It doesn't have to be, maybe two people are right, and they're fighting, even though they actually agree on it. But they're not listening effectively to understand they're actually agreeing on it. Yeah, no, there's been so many times where me and my friends have argued about something for like 10, 15 minutes, until we realize, we both mean the same thing. It happens to be plenty of times. I love arguing in sports, man. Me and my friends, we get so riled up the whole time, we agreeing on the same thing. Yeah. I mean, I will argue, I love arguing, too. So I'll be, I mean, I wouldn't really say, even call it arguing, because it doesn't really get heated. But I will love, I love to debate. Like, debating is, are really fun. Learning more about other people, how they view things, it can actually really impact the way you view things. Because if you're constantly stuck in this little thing about the way you view things, everything is bad for me or whatever. And then once you understand another perspective, literally everyone else in the world is like cynical. Then literally everyone is thinking the same thing. But it's just, it's just this like whirlpool of like people not understanding anything. Ignorance is like such a pet peeve of mine. People not knowing what they're talking about. Like, bro, just get, know your stuff before you start talking about it. That's how I feel, man. I tell you that all the time. See, I want to be a sports analyst. So, you know, I love arguing sports, man. I swear I love arguing sports. But I tell people every time, if you're going to argue sports with me, you have to bring up facts, not your opinions. Yeah, facts, definitely important. I mean, it's not that opinions don't matter or that feelings don't matter. But like in this case when you're talking about like, I don't know, some sports thing. And I don't know, I don't know exactly what sports you focus on. But like, I don't know, if somebody hit a home run, you don't want to say, I feel like this other person could have done the home run. I'm like, okay, but you, they didn't. Like, so definitely stick to facts in that case. But anyway, back to listening, definitely. In arguments, you have to be listening to another person's point of view. Otherwise, you're not going to get it, understand what the person is talking about. All right, yeah, I do. I definitely agree. I mean, sometimes it's never like a singular party's fault. I mean, there's a lot of different like barriers to listening when it comes to like any sort of conversation. Like just like the noise of the environment you're in. Just like how the room is set up with the acoustics. Like sometimes just having a hard time hearing someone can be a huge detriment to understanding what's being said. Like if you're in a crowd of like tons of people and you're trying to have like a really deep, intense conversation with somebody, that's probably not going to work out if you're too loud around you. Yeah, like also, it's good to keep in mind like people with disabilities. Like I have multiple friends who are like half deaf. Like they don't have hearing aids. They don't have anything like that. And like until you bring it up, you have no idea. But yeah, like I can just say something and they'll just completely not register it because I'm on the wrong side. It's important to sort of be mindful that everyone can't hear exactly the same and can't communicate exactly the same as well. I used to. I'm not sure if I still do. Probably because I practice a lot. But I did struggle with an auditory processing problem where I would automatically connect with what I heard people saying exactly. I would like mash the words up in a certain way. It was really weird. But I would process it completely differently than what they were saying. That's terrible. Right? It was like when I was like 9, 10. But I really did not. I mashed up words and things made no sense to me. Like they would say they're mixing the pot or something like that. Mixing the pot or drink or whatever. Not the drink. But the stuff inside the pot. And I would imagine literally like pots like mixing or just things that don't actually. Not with a thing. Okay. Yeah, that's so crazy. How long did that last? Probably like two or three years. Wow. But it was a problem where I just would not understand or not process correctly what they were saying. Yeah, I can imagine that. Even if the words made perfect sense. I would just connect it to some other weird thing and just picture that. I'm like how does that have to do with anything? How did that affect your school as well? Oh, definitely. So I would be in class and then, I don't know, my teacher would be talking about something. And I would bring up something completely off topic. But I thought it was on topic because I was like, okay, kind of random. You brought up this random subject. But I would love to talk about that. So I'm talking about this random subject in class. And my teacher's like, that's not what we're talking about. And I'm like, sorry. How long did it know before you figured out what was happening? So about like probably six to eight months in. My mom, I mean, it was kind of like my whole life except it became a problem around eight or nine. So like I would always process things. My mom just thought I didn't really listen. So she would just view it as that. But then later she was like, yeah, you probably have an auditory processing problem. You just process things weirdly. But then she was like, yeah, she told me that. And I was like, okay, that makes sense. So it was kind of like a thing. I'm definitely better at it. But I think I still kind of do have it where I'm just like connecting the most random things. Is this some sort of like listening therapy or like anything like that? Or was it just like did you just have to figure it out yourself? Yeah, I think she just wanted me to listen more and think about it instead of just immediately repeating what I thought she said. Think about what could that actually mean. That's what she told me to do. And I definitely practiced that. And I definitely got better. I mean, I think it was mostly just me not actually caring what they said and me just saying, well, you said this. That's the funniest thing. I'm like, that's not what we're talking about. But another barrier to effective listening is eavesdropping and other bad listening practices like that. A lot of people like I have a bad habit of eavesdropping a lot. Just by habit, I catch people's interesting conversation and I'll just immediately get distracted by that. And just it's bad. It's not nice. It's rude, basically. Yeah. But like the biggest thing about it is you're probably missing a lot of key information when you're doing it, like in the middle of a conversation. It might be about something you don't even know, but you're like from context clues trying to guess who it is. And maybe you like fit a story about something that's completely false about someone you don't even know. But like that can be. You could have heard it wrong or anything. Yeah, definitely hear it wrong. If you're the one in the conversation, you'll be given all the context you need to know. But when you're not in the conversation, there's going to be a lot of information you don't know, especially if it's in the middle of a thing. And just listening to what they say after that is like one of the words of information. Like at our dinner time tables, I don't know. I'll just be like thinking about the most random thing, like just eating. And I'm like, and my dad will say something that interests me. And I'm like, wait, what are you going to say? And I'm like, I'm not going to repeat the entire conversation. You just have to listen. And then you won't have that problem. You'll always get to what you're most interested in, too. Yeah. Sometimes you don't even realize you're too much eavesdropping. Like you said, it could be right there. Something that interests you, you hear it. And now you're like, what did you say? Are you going to repeat that again? I haven't been through moments like that. Yeah, so you just have to be listening the entire time because it probably could end up talking about something you're really interested in and then kind of intertwine all the things that they were previously talking about. And then you could be interested. So you have to listen to know that. Yeah. It's just being mindful of, like, the conversation that's happening not only with you but with other people. And, like, just being respectful while engaging in sort of conversation. Not like, don't eavesdrop on other people. It's not worth it for anyone. You're only going to get fragments and draw conclusions. Yeah, and if you need to be told something, you'll be told it. So eavesdropping doesn't really gain you anything. You need reflective listening instead of telling people. I mean, I was talking about this in an earlier discussion board post where I was talking about getting with my sister. And instead of giving her solutions to the problem, just, like, understand where they're coming from and say, yeah, that's rough. Instead of saying, oh, you could have just done this. Yeah, just, like, some people don't always want to have their problems solved. Some people just want to be able to talk, to be able to, like, vent their frustrations or their feelings and just, like, receive support from you. And that's also when you enter some sort of dialogue, it's important. Like I've mentioned before, knowing what the other person needs. And if they just need someone to, like, the shoulder to cry on, just, like, someone to listen to their problems, you got to – you can just ask them. Like, just ask, hey, do you want me to just – do you want me to help you or do you just want me to listen to you talk? I do that so much. I always try to, like, fix my problems or someone else's problems the second they're presented to me. Yeah. Some people just want to vent and just want people to listen to them and basically understand their feelings. Or they just want people – some people just want people to hear their problems, not even off the solution, but just to get it out of their bodies sometimes. They're holding it in, need someone to drop it off to or tell them, like, man, I'm going through this, man. Yeah, my sister actually ended up telling me that. She was just like, why can't I just rant to you about something I'm annoyed about? And I'm like, you know, good point. You can. Just rant and I'll be listening to you. And I think this was actually during – while I was taking this class. And I was like, wait a second, didn't we talk about that in our lectures? Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff you can draw back to, like, different – like, all of these theories and different practices, really, they do come in handy. Like, improving your communication skills not only helps you, but, like, if you're working in a customer service job, like, I do. I talk to people all the time and I have a spiel I have in my head and I got to solve people's problems, like, day by day, case by case basis. And learning how to, like, effectively tell people everything they need to know, deal with their problems, get them checked out, and while also just doing my job and everything else. Like, these skills and practices really further me in helping whatever I need to do around the job. Yeah, definitely. Well, we can close off this episode with just remembering that you have to keep in mind environment, physical barriers of things that could be avoiding your listening effectively. So when you are – don't talk about something really important in a crowd of people and also understand other people's point of views. Reflective listening is really important when you are talking to a loved one and you're trying to understand their point of view. So just – definitely just listen really closely to what they're saying. And remember to stay in the listening, which you're receiving, interpreting, recalling, evaluating, and responding. Thank you for listening to our podcast. Have a nice day. Have a nice day, you guys. All right.