Good Life Project - The Art and Science of Listening | Kate Murphy

Episode Date: March 26, 2020

Kate Murphy is a Houston, TX-based reporter whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Economist, Agence France-Presse, and Texas Monthly. Her book, You're Not Listening is equal parts cultural observation, scientific exploration, and a rousing call to action that's full of practical advice. Murphy explains why we’re not listening, what it’s doing to us, and how we can reverse the trend. She makes accessible the psychology, neuroscience, and sociology of listening while also introducing us to some of the best listeners out there (including a CIA agent, focus group moderator, bartender, radio producer, and top furniture salesman). It’s time to stop talking and start listening.You can find Kate Murphy at: The New York Times-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest, Kate Murphy, is a Houston, Texas-based reporter whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, Economist, Texas Monthly, and so many other places. But she didn't start out or have a dream to be a journalist or even a writer in the beginning. In fact, she was doing a PhD in psych, focused on business, industrial psych, when she left and started doing a bit of writing for a small local free paper with no background in journalism or writing as a way to pay her bills, not realizing that the company also owned similar and larger journals around the country. And the work that she was creating for them would end up being distributed in a wide variety of newspapers all over the country, giving her exposure and launching a career in journalism where she's been entirely self-taught. And along the way, she would discover the importance of listening and became really

curious about the state of listening in the world. This led to a deep dive and eventually a new book, You're Not Listening, that is fun and an insightful tour through the world of listening. We explore Kate's journey, along with some really eye-opening and surprising science and insights about listening in today's conversation. She even explains why I, as a lefty, always listen to podcasts with only one ear in my right ear. So it was kind of fascinating. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. I never set out to be a journalist. And so I've always been a listener and I fell into being a journalist.

I'm not kidding. So what's the backstory there? You know, I was in a PhD program for industrial organizational psychology and I hated it. You know, I got into it with this idea that I wanted to make the world better for people because they spend most of their day at work. And so I wanted to find ways to make that more pleasurable. But once I got into the program, it was mainly statistics. And it was creating employment tests to weed out the wackos, essentially, who would be causing a problem. And I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life. And so I am very much not a quitter.

But that was the first thing that I ever said, I can't do this. Was this just a slowly growing thing or was there like a moment or decision or happening that made you say, okay, this is like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be here for four years learning how to make employment tests, bubble in tests. This is what it is. And I just said, I'm not doing this. I've never been somebody who likes school, and I had just gotten through college and thought, okay, well, this will be the last step. And I said, I'm not doing this anymore. I want to really essentially I want to get out in the world and see what's going on. I don't want to be in academia anymore.

So were there middle steps between you making that decision and then entering the world of journalism? Or was it just right into that as the next thing? Well, just by accident, really. I got out because, you know, I needed to pay my rent. As we all do, right? Exactly. So I got out like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? And I had heard of this little paper in North Houston

that was, you know, one of those throw away on your lawn type of paper. Maybe I shouldn't say that in New York. You don't have throw away papers on your lawn. But in the South, we do have that. We have our equivalent. And so I did a few little pieces for them and somebody with the Houston Business Journal saw what I had done. But the Houston Business Journal, I did not realize the business journal publications are distributed nationwide. There's a Chicago business journal. There's a Los Angeles business journal. And my pieces were spread all over the place. And I had no idea.

Oh, so you think like you're writing and it's just going to be seen locally. Yes. And unbeknownst to you, you're being read nationally. Yes. How and when do you find that out? I mean- When someone from Business Week got in touch with me. And then after that, somebody from the New York Times got in touch with me. And then after that, somebody from the New York Times got in touch with me and said, hey, do you want to help out with this? And I'm still at this

point thinking, sure, okay, until I figure out what else I'm going to do. And now this many years later, my parents are still waiting for me to get a real job. They're like, when are you going to figure it out? I know. And how many years has it been now? Oh, don't date me. It's been a long time. It's been a while. Let's just say it's a long time. That's fascinating. But then writing must have been a part of your trajectory or skill set or interest or passion before, no? No.

Really? No. Never wrote for the school paper, wasn't the person writing short stories. I mean, when I say I didn't like school, I wanted to be outside. You know, I always wanted to be outside playing, kick the can. Just having to sit inside and did not like to read until I got into college. No kidding. And I mean, and now I love to read.

But I've always been somebody who wanted to be out, you know, I hate to say listening, but I mean, really just listening to what's going on. Just hearing stories. Part of it is being from the South, I think, and also from Texas, where people tell a good tale, and some taller than others. And so from an early on, I realized that listening is rewarding. And I also realized the more people you listen to who will tell the same story, the closer you get to the truth. And so that's part of being a journalist, isn't it? You listen to as many people as possible tell the same story, and you try and figure out, okay, what is going on here. Yeah. So it's sort of like the confluence of 12 people's individual truths maybe leads you somewhat closer to a remotely objective sense of more universal truth. Like this is it. Well said. Very well said. Yes. That's so interesting. I never really looked at journalism or the process that way. That's what I do. But again, we've just established,

I didn't go to journalism school. I don't know how other people do it. And I also really want to present all those points of view. I mean, certainly can't do 20, but a lot of people will coalesce around a certain stance. And so what I do is present all of those stances, the predominant stances, let's say, and then let the reader decide. I don't want to be telling them what to believe. I want to say, this is what these people say, this is what these people say, and you get to decide. Yeah. And do you find that unique in the world that you inhabit these days? Because it seems like the old rule of quote news is, you know, like you remove the individual point of view and you essentially do that.

The classic line, the facts, just the facts, right? And that's our job. It is not to share a point of view or a lens or push you one way or another, but it seems like in the last decade or so, the media landscape has shifted profoundly away from that. So I'm so curious, with that being your still driving ethos, do you find that at all harder to continue to sort of work that way? Yes. That's very true. It is. Because I think there are so many agendas

these days. And to be an agenda-less person, I don't have a dog in anybody's fight. You know, I mean, as we say in the South, I don't have a dog in the fight. And so I really, I want to just explore what other people think and how they arrived at that conclusion. And it doesn't bother me that I don't agree with it. And in fact, I'm very suspicious of people who are convinced of their own rectitude because I'm not. And I think as a journalist, you realize how uncertain things are and things are not black and white. And so, yes, it is more difficult because people seem to crave black and white right now,

as you know, or as they say, blue or red. Yeah. And I feel like there was a time where there were only a handful of outlets that everybody would go to. And now you can literally just choose the point of view rather than choose the news. You're really choosing the point of view that you want. That's almost going to most align with how you want to see the world and then have that just reinforce your worldview. Well, and that's why I wrote the book. Because, you know, curiosity, I was like, what is why, why, why this and why now? Well, that's very much part of it. I, I really think all of my career has led up to the book. But yeah, that is part of it, is just that all of us aren't listening, that we have this

focused view, or we're just looking for a supportive view, and not allowing ourselves to hear the other side. There's something scary, there's something disturbing about hearing and really just the fear. I talk about that in the book about how when people hear an opposing view, it's like being in their minds, and they've shown this in the fMRIs, that it's like being chased by a bear. That is what your brain does when people have very staunch views. And to be living in that type of fear where you can't listen to the other side and we'll get that fearful. And of course, that leads to anger. And we see that all around us today.

I mean, it seems like it's, I mean, you just sort of shared it in the context of politics, which certainly has been at the center of a lot of culture and conversation over the last couple of years, especially. But it seems like this filters into the state of listening just in everyday life, whether it's a kid, whether it's a teenager, whether it's an adult, whether it's around politics or almost anything else. It's like the generalized state of listening over the last generation or two, it seems like, has changed in profound ways.

No, I agree with you. And the book is definitely nowhere near politics. It's really about our everyday lived experience of listening, whether it's to your children, to your spouse, to your coworkers. And indeed, I think that's right. I think a lot of things that are happening technologically, politically, and just our environment. I mean, when's the last time you went to a restaurant and you could really hear the other person? Everything's conspiring against our listening. Most offices today are open office designs, so you don't have any enclosure. Every keyboard click, every belch after lunch, every conversation intrudes on your ability to talk

to somebody else and really listen. Let's actually define what we're talking about when we talk about listen, because I think it's kind of like a general, it's almost like a catch-all term to a certain extent, because at least in my mind, there is a distinction between hearing and listening. Absolutely. At least there can be. I think you can map it out in a way where it's different. So when you talk about listening, what are you talking about? You know, that's really interesting you bring that up because when I wrote the book, I asked people on five continents, what does it mean to be a good listener? And people just look at you blankly.

I mean, almost without exception, people just had that deer-in-the-headlights look. At the same time, they had absolutely no problem telling me what it meant to be a bad listener. They can easily tell you things like looking at a phone, interrupting, responding in an illogical way. And it really, it's the sad truth that most of us has more experience not being listened to than truly gratifyingly heard. And what I learned writing the book is that listening is not just hearing what people say. It's what they do while they're saying it, in what context, and how what they say resonates within you. And so you're taking in all this sensory information, and listening is such an all-encompassing activity. So it isn't just, as you say, hearing.

Hearing's passive. Listening is very active when you think about any of those conversations or when you think about any of the the the stories the people the conversations that have become part of your universe as you explored this question and the question around what listening is or isn't what it embodies or includes or excludes are there any people or stories that sort of like really stood out to you on the journey? Oh gosh, so many. You know, I interviewed so many exceptional listeners in the book, as well as really bad listeners. So it was really good. But I, you know, I listened,

I interviewed a CIA agent, a focus group moderator, bartenders, priests, psychotherapists, a hairstylist, and I guess one of the ones who, there's so many, it's hard, it's like asking me to choose between my children, but I really, a focus group moderator that's based just outside of DC, her name is Naomi Henderson. She's fabulous. She's in her 70s. She's been moderating focus groups since she was in her 20s. So she has interviewed thousands upon thousands of people in the focus group type of setting. And she's just the most amazing listener. I spent a lot of time with her. And she is, she's a wonderful person and a wonderful listener. And the thing that she does, what I've come to see is the listener's stance. It's not only what they do, but it's how they hold themselves.

And actually, you kind of have a little bit of that, I think. It's being very calm. It's being very open. She, in fact, she never crosses her legs never crosses her arms she is always open her her chest everything is open and you don't realize how that impacts you as a speaker when someone is inviting like that just her body language but also um one of the anecdotes I love is it was during a focus group, and she was tasked with finding out why people grocery shop late at night. And she didn't ask the obvious questions that, you know, most people would ask is, you know, do you shop late at night? Because that's

when they restock the shelf. Do you shop late at night? Because you didn't find time during the day. What she did is she turned it into an invitation, Said, tell me about the last time you shopped late at night. And this very quiet, unassuming woman in the corner who had said nothing up to that point, raised her hand and said, well, I had just smoked a joint and I was looking to have a menage a trois, me, Ben, and Jerry. So grocers, take note. I mean, that's exactly the kind of information that they need, that they want. And she's the, I sat in a lot of focus groups and there was just terrible focus group moderators. And you can see how we end up with stuff like, you know, New Coke or Cheetos lip balm or, you know, really just flops, product flops, because they weren't

asking questions that were open and honest that didn't have an agenda. Like, do you shop late at night because you didn't have time during the day. Most people will say, oh yeah, sure. I mean, it just changes the dynamics. So when we're talking about what makes a good listener, a lot of it is how you respond and how you are able to elicit clear expression of another person's thoughts and feelings. And that is an art and really a lost art. As you say, over the past maybe decade or so, we've just been losing that ability. And it's really to our great detriment. Yeah. And I think we're feeling, my sense is that so many of us are feeling some level of suffering these days. And sometimes we can point

a finger to it. Like I got injured here. There's a particular illness. Sometimes we look at the general state of society and it creates a certain amount of anxiety for people or fear. But I wonder often if being heard is so central to the human ability to flourish that when the opportunity for that starts to go away, that it creates suffering. But because we don't really think about it that way, it becomes really hard for us to identify that as a source of our suffering. Yes. I think most of us are oblivious. There's the thought that what troubles us and makes us suffer the most is not some traumatic event, something horrible that happened, but it's more the accumulation of occasions when something could have happened, but didn't.

That opportunity to connect, or when you said something and the person wasn't really listening, or the other person wasn't really listening to you. You know, that's an injury, actually. And, you know, sure, not huge, but, you know, you can bleed to death from a million paper cuts. And not listening or not being listened to is something that cumulatively can make you incredibly lonely. Yeah. We've talked about, I think, sort of like the state of listening and also the idea of being a good listener and a bad listener.

I think the idea also of there's a lot of mythology about how much of whatever is being conveyed between two people or a group of people is verbal versus nonverbal. So when we're talking about listening, part of my curiosity, too, and I know this is something that you explored. It is this question of, because I've seen stats, we know how you feel about stats now. No, I think stats are wonderful, I do. Right, it's just the way that you're exploring them in the old context. For years, there was like this thing thrown around that like 80% of communication is nonverbal,

which I've since learned is sort of a bit of a misinterpretation of some earlier studies. But what are you seeing and what have you seen in terms of the real breakdown of verbal, nonverbal, or other things that are being conveyed in ways that are not entirely obvious to us but are really central to the process of sharing and being heard. Well, I think where the disagreement comes in is when we're talking about the emotional content of the message versus, you know, you could say, I'm going to the store. You know, maybe no emotional content. Could be. But if there's no emotional content and you're just trying to say, I'm going to the store, then the words are enough. The nonverbals don't add too much if there's no emotional content and you're just trying to say, I'm going to the store, then the words are enough. The non-verbals don't add too much if that's really just what it is.

But if you are having a conversation, which most of them are, have to do with feelings, as much as half or 55% is the statistics that have come out. And, you know, statistics, we're already saying, you know, it depends on the conversation. But by and large, the emotional content, 55% is nonverbal. 38% is tone of voice, change in pitch. That leaves just 7% coming from the words, things that you could text. And I find it interesting, and people can debate that, and I'm not going to stand in the way. Like I said, I like to report, so I'm reporting that, and you can take it or leave it. But I think it's interesting now that when you're getting texts, they're all full of emojis

and so many exclamation points. When did that happen where you can't send a message without three or four exclamation points? And it's because people are straining to get tone of voice and body language, essentially, you know, expression through the emojis. And so you see us just trying to get that, you know, despite, you know, don't call me, I don't want to listen to you, but yet we're trying to do that with our electronics. You see the lack by what people are doing with these different modalities. Yeah, I so agree with that. I think, you know, I often, when I heard somebody say to somebody else who was standing next to me the other day, dude, you've got a great emoji game. And I'm thinking

like on the one hand, oh, that's cool. And then I'm thinking, but it's also kind of sad because it's come to that. We're in this place. It's interesting. We're hanging out in the studio face-to-face in New York right now. And part of what we do is we always sit down with guests face-to-face. And that's been part of what we're about from day one. And that means that there are a lot of people who would be fascinating to speak to who we end up saying no to, or we end up traveling. We pack up and we go

on the road to different cities or different countries to make it happen. And I'll wait sometimes years, even though I could easily open up a video conference window because the nature of the conversation to me is just so profoundly different when you're sitting in a room together. And like you said, I don't know if it's 7% words and 38% this, but what I do know is that the words are part of it. But so much of what happens between you and I in this room right now, it's about me seeing what's happening with your body, me seeing if you're nodding your head or looking away. What are you doing with your hands?

Are you breathing, picking up or not? And it's not like I'm sort of being creepy about it and like scanning and checking a list, but it is, I think we're just, we've sort of evolved to do that if we really take the time to do it and to need it done to us. Right. To feel like we've been heard. And we've been, in a weird way, it's not validated, that's the wrong word, but it's that need to just be acknowledged.

Well, if you think about it in purely evolutionary terms, this is how we survived. You know, this being able to connect, the only way I'm able to read what's in your mind is to listen to you. You know, it is the best way. And all of this other information and listen as in global, just not hearing, but us sitting in a room together. I mean, it first started with friend or foe, but then it developed, okay, what if we put these wheels together and put it on this vehicle and how would this work? And both of us working together with our different ideas, putting it together is how we advanced as a species. And so it is part of what has made us survive. And so it is important. That's why we yearn for it.

That's why little babies are just incredibly attuned to tone of voice, changes in pitch, and they look right at your eyes. That's where they go. They're not looking over there, the healthy babies. So it's exactly that. It's a yearning. And I love also, you know, Miriam Steele at the New School, she's an attachment expert. She talks about snatches of magic. And it's that moment of connection where either one of us says, ah, you know, really feel like we're getting what the other person is saying. And it is a whole chemical, physical thing that's going on. And those snatches of magic are what make life worthwhile. And without them, like you say, we suffer. Yeah, I love that.

As you were saying that, I literally, my mind went to a conversation we had here a few years ago with somebody who literally was very, very sort of like a train of thought. In his mind, it was out of his mouth immediately. And there was a moment about 40 minutes into our conversation where he leans forward and says, yes, yes, now it's happening between us. Do you feel it? Because we were having fun and it was kind of magical. And it was that just as you described it right there. And it affects us in a way that I think we probably dramatically underestimate until we miss it.

And then we just know something's not right, but we're not entirely sure what it is. Absolutely right. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is?

You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. You mentioned, kind of in passing, but I want to step into it again a little bit.

fMRIs. Tell me more about what you have discovered about sort of the neuroscience slash biology of both being on the listener side and the listen-to side of things. Well, I'm a great fan of Yuri Hassan at Princeton. the listener side and the listen-to side of things? Well, I'm a great fan of Yuri Hassan at Princeton. And he did studies where he hooked up speakers and listeners to an fMRI. And the better the communication, the more in sync their brain patterns, their neural patterns were. So you see it happening to both of them. And you can actually see on an fMRI those snatches of magic. Before we even had fMRIs,

we talked about being in sync with somebody. Literally, you are. It's like this marvelous dance where you're at the same rhythm and you know what your partner's doing. And not only do our brainwaves sync up, but also just the way we're looking at each other. We're not aware of it, but our body language starts to mirror one another, our tones of voice. So there's something wonderful. I don't know if you've ever done line dancing or anything like that. But it's where everybody's doing the same thing, or they get in the same rhythm, and you really lose yourself. You are no longer an individual. You are part of this great organism moving.

And it's pure joy, and it's really a larger manifestation of kind of what happens when you have a really good conversation. You get beyond yourself. You become greater than yourself. You're linked with this other person. And experience, you know, I have to go back to Marion Steele's wonderful Snatch of Magic. I mean, I never thought about it that way until hearing you describe it. But I think I have certainly experienced that sort of collective flow state type of experience. I taught yoga for many years and it was a flow style of yoga.

And there were moments where you had 50 people in a room all moving and breathing in beautiful synchrony. And I might have dropped down and been moving with them. And it's like time simultaneously stops and fugues. It's kind of magical. It does feel like there's a sinking experience that you're describing, which makes me also wonder, maybe are we biologically wired to strive to have that experience of synchronization? I think we are. I think it's what's helped us to survive. When we have that synchronicity, we work together. We understand each other's minds and we're able to say, yeah, we can make it to the moon. How do we figure this out? Because you

can't do that by yourself and you can't achieve it without listening really well and really figuring out what it is that I'm lacking that you may have or that you may have that I'm lacking. Curious also whether you looked at, you know, beyond the neuroscience, the biology and the chemistry of listening and being listened to. And one of my curiosities especially is around when we get down to the level of endocrine system and oxytocin, because we've all heard that oxytocin is the quote, love drug. But I wonder if part of that is about the experience of being just seen and heard

and held and listened to beyond this sort of ephemeral experience of quote, capital L love. I don't know that any studies have been done linking listening to oxytocin, but I think that is a great supposition. And I would be willing to bet that yes, it does. Yeah, it would make sense. We've got the, the sort of explored the experience experience of and the importance of this thing in our lives. And you've talked a bit about the barriers to it also. And one of them seems to, I think that the barrier du jour that we all point to these days is technology. We've had Sherry Turkle in here in

the past who talked about how social media and technology is sort of asynchronizing our conversations in a way where everything is preplanned. And beyond not being able to sort of express things with emojis, like, is there a way in your mind? I think we're not Luddites. Technology isn't going anywhere. It's here to stay. And it helps us in a lot of ways. Oh, absolutely.

I have nothing against technology. Yeah. So in your mind, like so many people are pointing to this as sort of like the devil when it comes to building relationships and seeing and being heard. What's the other side of that story? What is the enabling side? Like that allows people to see and hear and listen to each other, that in some way allows it to be a tool. You know, it's hard because you can't have those real synchronicities, snatches of magic without, as we've been talking about the whole package, you know, you need to be able to hear the tone of voice. You need to be able to see what the person's doing with their body, with their facial expressions. But, you know, you cannot be with somebody and be in that state all the time.

It's exhausting. It's something that, as wonderful as it is, it's a degree of stimulation that you cannot sustain. And so in between, to really let someone know that you're still thinking about them when you aren't in front of them. That's what technology is wonderful. You can look down, somebody just says, thinking of you. Otherwise, we're not telepathic. So when you're away to be able, and that sort of maintains that connection and also reminds you of the moments when you were listening to one another and reminds you of those snatches of magic. So it kind of keeps it going even when you're apart. So I, you know, and also you're able to, as we're doing right now, this podcast will go out to a lot of people. And, you know, otherwise not everyone would be able to sit in a room.

And if we were in front of a whole bunch of people you and i wouldn't be having the same experience whereas they'll get a somewhat of a piece of us connecting without all being in the room which would actually change the dynamic does that make sense no it makes total sense i love the idea of it's almost like you're what i was thinking of describing it as almost like using technology to microdose on listening after the fact. The way that people are talking about it with psychedelics and Silicon Valley these days. But I wonder also- I like that microdosing. I'm going to remember that. That's good. maybe like in those microbursts, you know, to reinforce the fact that somebody was heard in

a prior conversations, like, Hey, like a quick text. Hey, remember that thing that you said to me, I've been really thinking about it. It was so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with me. I mean, tiny little thing, like couldn't do it easily without technology. But I wonder if that gives somebody that almost helps sustain that the glow of being heard. Absolutely. I think that's exactly it. It's sort of a bridge until the next time you're together. Yeah. A lot of the way that we are trained around listening also happens at a really young age, maybe trained away from listening, or maybe the associations that we have around being told to listen can be pretty negative also. So some of this conditioning, it really starts at the earliest days. Oh, absolutely. I mean, really from day one,

we're almost encouraged not to listen. I I, as I talk about in the book, you know, when people say, listen up, what, you know, if that's your, your coach or your, you know, immediately the last year. Yeah, exactly. It's like, okay, somebody's going to tell me what to do. They're going to put some rules here. They're going to put some boundaries and you know, this is no longer going to be fun. Or, you know, when people, when you see parents say, listen to me, to their kids, almost hiss it, you know, listen to Or, you know, when people, when you see parents say, listen to me, to their kids almost hiss it, you know, listen to me. You know, you're not going to like what's coming next. So yeah, it starts really early. And then, you know, I also talk about in the book,

in school, you know, there are courses in debate and rhetoric and elocution. And, you know, and as you get older, you can join Toastmasters or you can get a degree in speech communication. But, you know, who strives for excellence in listening? You know, where's the group that gets together that learns how to listen better? It doesn't happen. It was funny on New Year's Eve, I was talking with a guy and somebody told him I was writing the book. And he was saying, yeah, I'm a terrible listener. He said, but there's no reward to listening. And, you know, he was, you know, he, a lawyer, his whole life has been in this trajectory of talk.

Talk is going to get you where you need to go. This is a guy who's been married four times and has rotated in and out of a lot of law firms. And here he is telling me, listen, she doesn't get you anywhere. And so, okay. In his language, res ipsa loquitur. The thing speaks for itself. Yes. But I mean, it sounds like what a lot of people hear when they hear listen or listen up or listen to me is now follow directions. Yes. So it's not about listening to them. It's

like, okay, so it's being told to comply. Or I'm right and you're wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's like the judgment and the shaming that goes along with it. Exactly. And I really hope people who read the book will come away with, you know, if you don't agree with somebody, that doesn't mean you're not listening. You know, if anybody accuses you, you're not listening because you don't agree with them. That's not the same thing. You know, if somebody says you're not listening, no, you can listen to somebody very well and really understand where they're coming from and still come down on you don not listening. No, you can listen to somebody very well and really understand where they're coming from and still come down on you don't agree. You can appreciate their opinion

and understand how they arrived at it. But people need to know that listening is really understanding. It doesn't mean agreeing. Yeah. And I think that is at the heart of a lot of this too. It's sort of like, if you really heard me, how could you not agree with me? Exactly. Right. So clearly you're not hearing me. That's the only option here because- I couldn't be wrong.

Right. This is all on you. Right. There's so much, man, we have so much baggage around this. It's true. It's absolutely true. And it's such a wonderful thing. It's such a joyful, wonderful thing that as we've talked about, sustains us. And it's gotten such a bad rap. Yeah. Because if you think that listening is about compliance or doing what you told, doing what you told. And then you think about, well, what is the message that we're given about succeeding in work and in life? Well, you need to take initiative. You need to be the one who's constantly out forward. It's almost like

listening becomes positioned as the opposite of initiative or being forward-facing or being the one who's really doing new cool things. And like, that's not the person you're supposed to be or the way that you're supposed to be. And yet, you know- Lead the conversation. Right, right. But the conversation can be like, you can lead with curiosity

rather than with force and opinion. Yes, absolutely. And also, if you listen very well to somebody, you are better able to craft your message. The best and clearest and most inspirational speakers are the ones who know their audience. audience, because you cannot really touch or move someone unless you know what touches and moves them. And it's kind of like the same thing when you're going to tell a story to your grandmother versus your girlfriend. You'll tell it a different way, your coworker versus your customer. You shape your conversations always a little bit when you're talking, depending on who your audience is and people who get really good at it, particularly if it's somebody that they've met who's new, to try and figure out, okay, what's their understanding level? What excites them? What's going to interest them? And if you can't get that information by

listening to them and drawing it out of them, then you're not going to be an effective speaker at all. You're not going to be somebody they're going to want to listen to. And even if you take a step beyond that, if part of what you're doing as a speaker, whether it's a paid professional speaker or somebody who's in a conversation, somebody who is in sales, somebody who's in a relationship, most of us, very often I feel like a lot of the reason that we speak

is because we seek to A, be heard and seen, but also to influence others. And if you want to be effective at that, the most effective way to do that is to truly understand what matters to someone else. Who are they? What's their history? What's their worldview? What brought them to this moment? And you can't do that unless you just shut up and ask a lot of questions and listen to and watch and feel for a long time first but again we don't go there it's so interesting your point about you know where have you seen on a college curriculum a class and like fierce listening

never you know not in elementary school not in middle school not in high school not in college i mean i i just found it astounding when I would look at these encyclopedias of interpersonal communication, and listening wasn't even in the index, not even in the index. It's really been pushed aside as an area of study. People are not concerned with it. It's thought of as talking's meat counterpart. When it's really the more powerful position, as you've just said, you can't speak well unless you've listened well. Is part of the reason that you've been working on this to try and potentially open eyes of those in an educational space to say, like, maybe this actually should be raised as a priority? Oh, I would love that.

I would very much like that. It's somebody who was interviewing me recently at a bookstore in Houston was talking about, do you think this should be taught like financial literacy? That it should be something taught at a very early age. And yes, it should be. I mean, it'll save you a lot of heartache later on in your relationships, professional or personal. Yeah, I mean, it should be. I mean, it'll save you a lot of heartache later on in your relationships, professional or personal.

Yeah. I mean, on every level. Speaking with, are you familiar with John Gottman and Julie Gottman? Yes. From the Love Lab. Yes. Amazing work over decades now. And I think their work really ties in with what you're talking about. And the idea of a central thing to healthy

relationships is that we are all bidding for the partner's attention and affection all day, every day. And the best relationships were the ones where people actually saw it and responded to the other people's bids much more often. Even if they didn't respond in the way that was sought, they were the ones who noticed. And I think noticing is such a huge part of this thing that we're calling listening here. Yeah, I think noticing is the key. And I also think that in a lot of relationship, it just happens where people lose their curiosity for each other because they become so accustomed to having the other person around that they get this idea of, oh, I know what

they're going to say. I already know what they're going to say. I know them like the back of my hand. And all of us, every single day, you and I will leave this room different people because of what you've heard and what I've heard. Every interaction shapes us and forms us. So if our partners, people that we're close to, do not keep up with us, pretty soon they become like those couples who say, I just don't know you anymore. It's a constant conversation. What's going on in your head? And it's always asking, listening, figure out, well, who are you today? So not assuming that we know. Absolutely.

Is a big part. Yes. Over talking. You know we got to talk about this. Yes, we do. Tell me about this fascinating phenomenon. Well, you know, I really wanted to get this across in the book. You should not only listen to other people when they're talking, if you're not gauging their degree of interest and you're just going on and on, you're really not listening very well.

The other person may be getting very bored. You're going on and on about your colonoscopy or about your kid's oboe recital. And, you know, that is all a part of listening. It's all a part of that dance where you're reading, okay, I'm going on a little too long. Maybe I should cut this back. And if people aren't really good at intuiting that, they can just ask, have I lost you? Too much? Had enough? That kind of thing. It's simple courtesy, but it's also, it's part of listening. It's part of being part of that dance where we're this organism.

And, you know, if somebody's falling off rhythm, you need to help them come back. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. Is there in your mind, how do I phrase, is there a tactful way?

If you're the recipient of a barrage of over-talking, which we all will be at some point. And we may well be the over-talkers also. And then our work becomes to become more aware of how we're being received. Have you found that there's a tactical way for you to kind of say to somebody, hey, listen, this isn't working, basically. Because I often wonder, you'll be in a conversation with somebody, who's a good person? And they don't mean to barrage you and overwhelm you and completely almost really push you away at the end of the day.

And they're very likely also completely unaware of the fact that they're shutting down the ability for this fundamental interchange of energy where they just stop talking and listen as well. And you would like to have this relationship continue on and build, but it's not gonna happen if this is the dynamic all the time. Have you talked to anyone that's sort of like in the research or found ways to, from the recipient side,

have that conversation in a way which doesn't immediately offend or push someone away? Well, I think it really depends on your relationship with the person. You know, how close you are, your ability to say, eh, you know, this is a lot. You know, and I think everybody's guiding star should be to be kind. But I've found like when I'm interviewing people and they're going on and on about something or, you know, even if I'm at a party, oftentimes when people do that, they're doing that for a reason. And so it's really figuring out, it's not just because they're going on and on, you know, sometimes it's because they're

nervous. Sometimes it's because they are trying to push you away. They're just filling up the air because they don't want to have that connection. They're just filling up the air because they don't want to have that connection. They don't want to have that degree of intimacy. So they may go on and on. They may just be terribly lonely and they're doing anything they can to keep you. Because if they stop talking, they're afraid you might leave. So when you kind of try and figure out, okay, what's driving this? It gets a lot easier if you intuit, okay, this person's nervous, than trying to put them at ease. Are they afraid I'm going to leave?

Make them aware you're not going to cut them off, that it's okay. I think a lot of people who overshare, it's because we've gotten to this state where no one's listening. And I feel like if they put a period or even punctuate in any way, someone else will leap in. Yeah. Or there's so much distraction that the minute they stop talking, you're going to return to your devices or go start checking. And so there's like a short, short, short amount of attentional bandwidth that they have to get everything out. And they don't want to stop because it might give you the window to pick up your device or go somewhere and get distracted by of attentional bandwidth that they have to get everything out and they don't want to stop because

it might give you the window to pick up your device or go somewhere and get distracted by that other thing. And not a sad commentary. Yeah. It's such an interesting reframe though. It's almost like you, in a weird way, you're not listening anymore, but you're becoming curious about their deeper motivation for why they're doing what they're doing, which makes you curious about them. And then maybe it allows you to respond from a place of compassion rather than just pure judgment. I always think of it as being like a detective. Why is this person telling me this?

I do that on a regular basis too. What is underneath all this? Because a lot of times it isn't, again, back to what are the words? Are the words important? Or is it the body language? Or is it the tone of voice? I really like the detective analogy because that makes every conversation interesting because you're trying to figure out, okay, what's going on here? And then if you're a creative person, you can just start fabricating all sorts of really cool backstories.

Yeah. Then you're really no longer listening. If they're really, really going on for a long time. Maybe that's not a constructive way to handle it. Well, but I have a chapter in the book that's, you know, when to stop listening. And sometimes, you know, it's time. You know, someone can take advantage of you and someone can be, you know, so discourteous and so not listening to you

that maybe it's time to stop. Yeah, I think that's because you just need to preserve your own ability. I mean, like you said, it takes a lot of attention and energy to be in a fully engaged conversation. We can't do that all day, every day. So it's almost like you have to be very intentional about the moments that you choose to be fully and utterly there. And actually, this brings up another curiosity of mine, which is, do you have a sense that that changes your capacity for being hyper-present and for listening changes based on your social worrying, based on introversion, introversion, extroversion at all? I think you get better at it and you have more stamina the more you do it. Listening is like, I think it's like a sport or like any skill.

You know, the more you do it, the better you get at it, the more stamina and endurance you have. I, you know, but also like any skill, some people may have more natural ability, just more sensory ability than others. But everyone can get better at it. And I really hope that's what my book does. I mean, every chapter breaks down a different aspect of listening. And I really, without reservation, I can say when you finish my book, you will be a better listener. You also, you talk about a phenomenon that I've experienced, I think a lot of people have, where there's a difference in your thinking speed and your speaking speed.

Yes, yes. Which can cause some problems. Yes, because you can think a lot faster than people can talk. And as a result, I mean, we have these marvelous brains. Someone's talking and you take mental side trips. You know, you're wondering, okay, what am I going to eat later? Do I need to go to the grocery store? What my kid said this morning?

You know, my wife is mad at me. You know, you just get off course. And really your ability to stay focused, I gave the examples, you can think of it as meditation, where you acknowledge the distractions that you have in your head, but then you return to focus, which is the person, instead of focusing on your breathing or a mantra, back to Jonathan. What is Jonathan saying? And as you were just talking about, you know, getting better at it, skill level, just like

meditation, the more you do it, the better you're able to put those distractions aside and get in that state of flow where you really are so engaged in the other person's story that you lose yourself in it. Yeah, I completely agree with that. Yeah, I have been meditating for about 10 years now on a daily basis and a mindfulness which trains you not just to focus your attention, but to drop whatever comes into your mind, which, as you said, is very central to the art of listening. There was a conversation that you referenced with somebody who was a CIA agent and took polygraphs. And part of that conversation revolved around there was an exchange where he said,

the CIA doesn't train people to listen. They look for people who are already good listeners and then basically train them in their skills and bring them in, which implied to me that he didn't necessarily believe that listening was something that was trainable or easy to train. It is trainable, but again,

not every listener, like playing a sport, not everybody who plays a sport is going to go to the Olympics. And so CIA agents, the ones who go on to do stuff like interrogation and who are out in the field, those are the Olympic listeners. And so those are people that probably started very early, just like people who play a sport and become really good at it. They start really early, and they put in their 10,000 hours. These are people that have been spending their lives being a good listener, and part of it's how they were raised. Part of it's just probably nature. They're just very curious. But I do think everyone can become a better listener. And Barry would agree with me, that's a CIA agent. But just some people have more, you know, got an earlier start, have some more natural ability.

And so they would be the ones who the CIA would say, I want that person. Yeah, it's funny. Intuitively, I say yes to that. I do believe there is a skill set that's trainable. There's a practice list that you can do. And I also do agree that meditation can be this thing that sort of seeps into every part of your life, including your ability to be present and just let everything else go and really focus on who's in front of you. And like you said, also, then there are people who are somehow wired to just be more that way from the earliest days. Once our research that used

the phrase attentional blink, which we have this issue like the field of visual perception where there's constantly spots that our brain fills in. And we have the same thing with our attention where we're constantly losing moments all the time. Yes. And people who engage in certain practices,

people who practice hyper-focus and being super attentive, they reduce the amount of attentional blink and that allows them to actually intake a lot more information. Interesting. Yeah. And I thought that was fascinating because what I wondered was, if you're somebody that develops that skill set, in the world of art and entrepreneurship and business, the fundamental rule is garbage in, garbage out. And if you can take in more of the good stuff, maybe that gives you the capacity to put out more of the good stuff too. So we've been talking more on a relational level, how this

benefits you and the people that you're speaking to and working with. But I wonder also on the creative level, on the wanting to do extraordinary work in the world level, this skill set of listening allows you to take in more and more deeply in a level that then lets you turn around and output just a higher quality of whatever it is that you contribute to the world. It does. It does. It does. The more people you listen to, the more ideas that you're exposed to, it does, it fosters creativity. It makes you better able to make connections and see patterns and say,

ah, this might work. This person tried that. It didn't work. This person tried that. It did work. And to develop your own things this might work, this person tried that, it didn't work, this person tried that, it did work. And to develop your own things that build on what other people have said or other things that you, again, as you say, noticed when you start noticing these things. Whereas in isolation, you can't find out what people need to create that great product without listening to them.

You can't figure out what's aggravating them about an existing product without listening to them and noticing what sparks joy, what causes people to be really annoyed. And so when people are able, whether it's art or whether it's design, it's all about listening. It all comes back to noticing what is driving other people. What is making them interested or disinterested? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There's an interesting quirk of hearing too, which I laughed when I saw this. So I'm, because a lot of my living happens with audio, I'm very often walking around listening to things. I spend a lot of hours listening to stuff and I use earbuds and I generally only use one at a time because I want to hear what's going on around

me too, especially if I'm walking around New York City. Oh, that sounds dangerous. I'm a lefty. So I just kind of figured automatically I would use my left ear, but it's just my left side is more natural to me. I don't. I always, especially when I'm listening to spoken word, it is always the right side.

And I never understood why. So tell me more about this. It has to do with the lateralization of the brain. And so there's a right ear advantage when it comes to, because it goes to where we process language in some people, because sometimes with lefties, it can be the mirror image in their brain, but it can also be,

it sounds like you have the right lateralization. So that's where speech is processed. So it goes directly to the left side of the brain where that Wernicke's area is what it's called is located. So you're faster at processing that. It's the opposite is true of the left ear. The left ear, you're actually better at processing music and emotion. So it's a really interesting experiment to find out when you put the phone to which ear, on what occasions, in what context. And also maybe if

you are at the out at a noisy restaurant, which ear goes towards you? And does it depend on what you're talking about? And it's fascinating. And it generally lines up exactly the spoken word, particularly in the right ear. People are always inclining that right ear. But if they're thinking about something or maybe have a memory that's more emotional, you'll see the right side go down and the left ear will go up. It's amazing the way we're wired. I know. It was so fun to discover that. I'm like, oh, there's actually, there's a reason for this. There's, I'm not just this quirky person where it always has to be on the right side.

Can I ask you, your, wasn't your yoga studio, wasn't it called Sonic? It was, yeah. So tell me about that. We actually, well, there were a couple of reasons. One was in the early days of yoga, I was coming out of a more professional background. And I realized that there was great yoga all over New York. But when it came to sort of branding what I wanted to do, almost everything was named in Sanskrit. And nobody could remember the names of their studios. And as an entrepreneur and a guy who's like fascinated with branding and marketing, I was like, it needs to be easy and fast. But also the idea of Sonic, I am a lifelong sound and music junkie. And I have always been deep into understanding the role of music and rhythm and beats in transcendent experiences. I was a DJ, club DJ in college.

No way. Really? So I understood, like I learned very quickly that I could really manipulate the social dynamic of hundreds of people for hours at a time by what I did in this little booth. sound, music, rhythm, and beats into a flow style of yoga that would really, in some way, potentially enhance the nature or change the nature of the experience and what people would do. Interestingly, I was known as bastardizing the practice in the early days because this was before a lot of classes had music now. And yeah, a lot of our students received it really beautifully. Some of the old guard really, really, really rejected it very strongly, including some of the big central media properties in the space. But I went so far as to, at one point, we bought a bunch of sail for Avic, had it all strung up together so it stretched across the entire front of the studio.

And then we created a special soundtrack where the rhythm of the music matched the flow of the yoga, beat by beat, move by move, breath by breath. Oh, wow. And then projected different color lights, So there was like chromographic therapy that would move people through phases. And then the beat would match the rhythm of the flow. And then we were embedding these things called binaural beats that entrain your brainwaves into certain different states. And we were trying to entrain brainwaves to theta states,

which is sort of like this deeply meditative state. And again, people in the room experienced some pretty profound things. I'm sure they did. The folks who were the hardcore traditionalists did not love what I was doing in a big way. I got over that really fast. I was just having fun. I just cared that people were coming to the practice. I knew that the core of it was still what it needs to be. And also, if you think about every healing tradition

for millennia has always had rhythm and music and movement at the center of it. So to me, I was just wondering, why would somebody who's defined this tradition in the last 50 years and said that this is not okay and this is okay, why do I have to listen to that? That was the dual sort of backstory behind that whole thing. That is fascinating. But it also speaks to what we've been talking about is just how profoundly sound affects us. And particularly if you think about the most sensitive parts of our ears, are the human voice.

And so if you think about our sense of well-being, and you were talking about feeling okay, that those particular areas, it's just that whole vibration, partially the music of someone's words, that is really fascinating. So you've been following this way longer than I have. I've been, I don't know, following it, but I've been curious about it for a really long time. But yeah, and I think the work that you're doing here, which kind of like brings it all together, is just deeply fascinating. As we start to come full circle too in our conversation, if you think about, we've talked about a lot of different things. If somebody wanted to walk away from this conversation saying to themselves, okay, I get it. Listening really matters. I'm not

entirely sure what's my first step into this to try and become better at it or learn more. Is there a first action to take or a first question to ask that you would recommend people? I think a real powerful thing is to really realize that how you respond is the measure of a good listener. And so when you respond to someone, be aware of, are you shifting or are you supporting the conversation? Are you shifting back to yourself when you start talking? Are you trying to encourage elaboration from the other person so you can learn more? And you'd be surprised how often people bring it back to themselves. And I think that's a really good first step.

There are so many things in the book, but I think that's a really good first step. When you respond, are you bringing it back to yourself? Are you trying to open up more of what the person just said? Get some more information and elaboration. I love that. And it's something that we can all start to look at. It's universally applicable and accessible. Sitting here in this container of a good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?

Snatches of magic. That's how you live a good life. Those moments of connection, it could be with a stranger or somebody that's very close to you. But just that spark, that moment of warmth behind your solar plexus, that listening fosters. That's living a good life.

Thank you. Thank you. asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com. Or just click the link in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share, share the love. If there's something that you've heard in this episode that you would love to turn into a conversation, share it with people and have that conversation.

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