The Mindset Mentor - How To Master The Art Of Conversation

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

Have you ever wondered why some conversations leave you feeling truly connected while others leave you feeling unheard? In this episode, I break down the LUV framework—Listen, Understand, and Validate—to help you become a better communicator, deepen your relationships, and make the people around you feel truly seen and understood. If you want stronger relationships and more meaningful conversations, these three simple skills can completely transform the way you communicate. Freedom Live is a 3-day live experience in Austin designed to help you break through what’s keeping you from your next level. Get $50 off your ticket: https://robdial.short.gy/freedomlive The Mindset Mentor™ podcast is designed for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life. Past guests of The Mindset Mentor include Tony Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, Lewis Howes, Gregg Braden, Rich Roll, and Dr. Steven Gundry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. And if you feel like you've been stuck in the same place for the past few years, you're stuck because of patterns that you cannot see, unconscious patterns that you lived in childhood. And in three days at my Freedom Live event in Austin, Texas, in December, we're going to find those patterns. We're going to break them, and we're going to send you home with a 12-month plan to live as a new person to make a new person to make. 2027 the best year of your life. Prices are about to go up this upcoming Thursday, September 24th,

so make sure you grab your tickets now before prices go up. So to grab your ticket, go to Freedom Live 26.com. Once again, Freedom Live, 226.com. Today, I'm going to be teaching you probably the most important skill that you can have to deepen your connection to other people and transform your life. Now, communication is something that we learn from people that were raised with throughout our entire lives. But have you ever taken a step back and ask yourself, how can I be the most effective communicator possible? What do I need to learn to communicate as effectively as possible? And we've all heard it. Communication is the number one key for any relationship, whether that's a romantic relationship, whether that's your friendships, your family, your children, any other breathing

human, basically if they can fog a cup because they're breathing, this that I'm going to teach you today will deepen your connection with other people and your communication with them. The problem is that most of us were never actually taught how to communicate. It's not something that we're born with. It is a skill set. And so for me, when I was younger, I realized I'm a really bad communicator. I'm shy. I don't communicate effectively. How can I become a better communicator? Because human connection is amazing. When you're really connected with another person in a great conversation, your body releases dopamine. It releases oxytocin. You feel good about it. And so let's try to get better at being communicators. So first off, what we need to know is communication,

as I said, is a skill. It's not a talent. What it does is it takes practice. And according to the the American Psychological Association, EQ, which is emotional intelligence, is one of the strongest predictors of relationship satisfaction, and communication is where EQ becomes visible. And so what I'm going to take you through is something that Dr. Carol Comfor came up with, and it's the key to communication, and it is an acronym. It is L-U-V. And so I'm going to take you through L and U and V. So the first part, L stands for listen. listen to another human with no need to respond, no opinions, no extra input, to just listen. Empathetic presence is the act of being fully present with another person, not just physically

in the same room as them, but emotionally present with them, mentally present with them. And what that means is when you're in a conversation with somebody, setting aside your own thoughts, your own judgments, your own beliefs, and any distractions that might be in the way of this other person. In today's fast-paced world, distractions are everywhere, and everybody's got an opinion. But to be fully present with another person when they're talking with you shows that you value them and you respect them, even if you say nothing. If you want to be a better communicator, the first thing you need to do is shut up. It's crazy. It doesn't make any sense because you think like, oh, I need to be a better public speaker. I need to say bigger words. Or maybe I need to say

something more effectively or communicate a specific way. No, we need to shut up. It creates a safe space where the other person feels seen and heard. So many people just want to be seen and heard nowadays. So put distractions away. Put your phone away. Get other devices away. Make eye contact with the other person that's in front of you, square up your shoulders with them, nod, show that you're listening to them every single step of the way. The most value that you can give someone in a conversation is silence. I don't know if you've ever been in a situation before where you sit down with somebody and they're a really big talker and they talk like 90% of the conversation and then you get done and they're like, well, that was such a great conversation. And you're like, I didn't say anything.

right? So what I want you to do is to listen better, to give them space, to sit there without judgment. And I get it. As a guy, this can be really hard because men, we always want to try to fix things. So if someone comes to us with their problems, where I was like, what can I do to fix it? And we put on my Bob the Builder hat. Listening is a skill. You know, don't try to fix problems. And the easiest way to do this and to get better at listening is to know that when that person is done talking, you're going to count to three without responding. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. Reason why is because when you just jump in and you say what you wanted to say, you don't listen to them in the first place. And at the same time, what usually happens is if you give

someone extra space, they'll usually continue to start talking again, and they will go deeper, and you'll get to know them even deeper because they went deeper. And according to Harvard Business Review, there was a study that was done, and they found that people who felt actively listened to by their managers were 80% more likely to report trust in psychological safety with that person. So practicing the wait time, that intentional three second pause before speaking increases understanding, slows down reactivity within yourself and within them. And what's weird about it, according to studies, it actually makes the other person feel smarter because they're given more time and they're allowed to process. And so psychologists call this

low arousal communication. It's used in therapy. It's used in trauma-informed parenting. It's lower volume, slower pace, fewer words. All of those equal higher trust. And so a pro tip that I can give you that one of my first mentors really gave me is stop trying to be interesting and be interested. And if you do that, you will be a much better communicator and people will feel like you're a much better communicator. So that is the L. Okay. Next one is you stands for understand. While words convey the surface message, the nonverbal cues like body language and tone and facial expressions often carry the emotional weight of the conversation. And we will be right back. And now back to the show. And so verbal and nonverbal is what you need to think of. So a really interesting thing years

ago when I was younger, I had a manager. His name was Jeff. And, you know, there was like over 700 offices in the company that I was in. There was men and there were women. And Jeff was the number one developer of female managers. He had more female managers than any other person in the entire United States, including other female managers. And so I asked him because I was like, hey, man, like, you know, what's the difference between men versus women? And he's like, I want you to read this book. It was a book called Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. And I read it to understand how our brains work differently, how we think differently, how we communicate differently. And I also saw a study as I started researching this. There was a study that was done on little boys and little girls. They were around four or five

years old. They had them go into a classroom. And what they had them do was they had them just sit at the classroom. They put them in there. And then they watched them through a mirror. where they didn't know that they were being washed on the other side. And little boys would face the front of the classroom and have conversations facing the same direction. So they're both facing the same direction. They turn their heads and they look at each other and talk to each other. Little girls were more likely to turn to each other's shoulders and like have each other's like looking dead in each other's faces and give each other nonverbal cues. Their head nods. They'd say stuff like yes, which is a verbal cue. And this is the reason why a lot of times that, like, men,

if you've ever heard, you've had your wife or your girlfriend be like, you're not listening to me. And you're like, what are you talking about? I heard the entire thing. It's usually because you're not giving the nonverbal cues and the verbal cues to show that you're listening, which is part of the you, which is understanding. Head nods, square up your shoulders. Uh-huh. Yeah. So what you're saying is dot, dot, dot, dot. Or if I understand, correctly dot, dot, dot, giving them facial expressions, giving them reflections back, like repeat back to them to make them know that you're listening, that you're present with them, and that you're understanding them. All of these show to the other person that you're listening and that you're

present. But more than anything else, they make the person feel seen and hurt. And one thing that I have learned in the past couple years is just how many people are starving in this world to feel like they are seen and heard and understood and that their emotions are valid. And there's a 2011 study that was done by UCLA that found up to 93% of emotional meaning and communication comes from nonverbal elements.

So 55% is from your body language. So just your body language is communicating with the other person. I'm listening, I'm understanding, I'm here, right? So 55%. 308% is the tone of your voice. So the way that you're speaking in, the tone that you're actually speaking back in, the cadence, the speed of it, right? And only 7% is the words that you actually use. So when you're trying to have them feel understood, you want to use what's called reflective listening. So what I'm hearing is dot, dot, dot. And it not only clarifies what they're saying to you, but it tells the other person like, hey, you matter enough for me to get this right. And when someone feels truly understood, their cortisol levels drop, that's a stress

hormone, drop. Oxytocin rises, which is the love chemical, and their nervous system starts to shift from threat to trust, to relaxation. And so, you know, when you look at it, it's listening, it's understanding. So that's L, that's you. And then the last one is V, which stands for validate. This one is very, very important because many, many people are not good at this at all. Very few people can effectively do this. And if you do this, people will love to communicate with you. It's something like, I completely understand. You don't have to agree with the person to say, I understand you. I understand why you feel that way. You can have a completely different opinion. You can have a completely different belief system, but you can say, you know what? I understand.

tell me more yeah i can see where you're coming from all of those is validating another human because perception is reality they are living in the reality that they're in based off of how they're perceiving it and so by validating another person's feelings or experiences you're not necessarily agreeing with them but you're acknowledging their perspectives legitimacy and so stop trying to fix everybody A lot of people don't want to validate. They want to go in and fix. I've done this before. I want to fix people. I want to fix problems. Lots of men like this. Oh, well, let me tell you what the problem is. Versus just validating the other human. That is called the savior complex where you're like, I'm just going to save everybody. Stop trying to save everybody. There's a clinical psychologist named

Dr. Marsha Linheim, who is the founder of dialectic behavior therapy. And she describes validation as recognizing and accepting another person's feelings, thoughts, and behaviors as understanding. That's it. Just understandable. So when you validate someone, you reduce their emotional defensiveness because their nervous system no longer feels like it has to fight to be hurt. And so with a phrase like, yeah, that makes sense, can be really disarming for another person. Once again, it doesn't have to be because you agree, but because you acknowledge how they got there. And so another thing you can do to also help in this situation is to ask questions. If you want to help fix somebody, if you're a fixer like me, instead of coming in and trying to give advice, ask questions. When you ask questions

to another person, they're usually able to gain more awareness through conversation. And then they think, man, that was such a great conversation with another person when in reality, what you did was you ask them questions that allowed them to expand their perception. And so you don't have to give them any answers. You just ask questions and allow them to come to it. Helping someone grow is not about taking away their pain. It's about helping them suffer less. Pain is something painful happens in our life. Suffering is the pain that we're continuing to live through because we're continuing to pull this pain with us and now we're suffering because of it. Something could have happened six months ago and someone's still suffering from that thing. And so instead of me going in and trying to fix somebody

and tell him, hey, here's what I would do. It's like maybe I can ask them questions to give them a different perception so that they can start to free themselves from their own suffering. That's what I would do if I were in your situation, you're a quote-unquote fixer like I am. So even if you don't agree with somebody, once again, you can still validate them. Even if you don't agree with somebody, you can still listen to them, you can still understand them, and you can still validate them. They did the best with what they have. And so what you're trying to do effectively here is to have compassion and understanding. One of the things that I have found about humans is that we all just want to be understood. That's it. We all just want to be understood and feel the feelings that we're

feeling are valid. Too many people are invalidating other people's feelings. According to a motivational interviewing research, open-ended questions promote insight and ownership, far more than giving advice to somebody. So instead of saying something like, hey, here's what I would do, what you want to just ask the question is like, hey, what do you need right now? It shows true empathy. it shows you're allowed to feel this. I'm not here to fix you. I'm just here to be with you. Every human is basically asking two questions in every interaction. Unconsciously, not even sitting down and going, oh, I'm asking myself these questions, but unconsciously, they're asking themselves, do you see me, like to this other person you're sitting across from? Do you see me? Number one,

and number two is, am I safe with you? And when you communicate and you use the L-U-V, the love, when you're communicating, it's allowing the person to be, yeah, this person sees me. And number two, I am really safe with this person. So when you're communicating with love, LUV, the answer becomes yes to both. So you might have clicked on this because you wanted to become a better communicator and speak more fluently and succinctly and be understood more. But really, if we're trying to be the best communicator that we possibly can, it comes with number one, listening, number two, showing people that we understand what they're saying to us,

and number three, validating them. If you do that, you don't have to worry about learning any big words or seeming interesting. People are going to love you way more just because of those three steps. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, you will absolutely love my three-day in-person event in Austin, Texas. If you've been stuck for a while at the same place the past few years. It's not because you lack talent or because you lack drive. You are stuck because of the patterns that you cannot see that were built into you in childhood. And in three days at Freedom Live in Austin, Texas, we're going to find them. We're going to break them. And I'm going to send you home with a 12-month plan to make 2027 the best year of your life. The prices are

about to go up this Thursday, September 24th. So if you've been thinking about coming with us, come on and join us before the prices go up. Go to Freedom Live.26.com for more information. once again, Freedom Live, 26.com. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.