I am a voracious ‘nodder’.

When someone is talking, I cant help but nod along, nearly in tune with their story.

I also find myself finishing people’s sentences or chirping in with comments or with a small little ‘yeap’ as they speak.

Oscar Trimboli, the King of Deep Listening, challenged my perspective that this behaviour was encouraging to my friends and colleagues.

He asked a few simple questions;
* What cues was this behaviour sending to the receiver?
* Was it suggesting that I was listening and agreeing, when really I wasn’t?
* Was it being respectful to the speaker when I chimed in with a comment or a flippant ‘yeap’?
* How could I respond differently to those speaking around me to truly demonstrate that I was listening to them?

I sat with this and thought about ways that I could listen better, as to be honest, I probably wasn’t listening well at all. I wanted to be more respectful to others and truly understand the topic they were speaking on.

What I have learnt is that listening is a skill. To truly listen, I needed to stop the nodding and interjecting.

For me, this felt really uncomfortable. But I have practised. I am not perfect, however I am much more cognisant of what I am doing when people are speaking and in return, I recognise what people are doing when I am speaking to them and how it makes me feel. I want to make others feel genuinely heard, and listening deeply is about being deliberate. It is one of the greatest gifts we can give someone else.

When someone speaks to you, and you want to show that you’re listening, what do you do?

Do you smile and nod to convey encouragement?

Chirp the ‘yep, yep, yep’ to show understanding?

Widen your eyes and cover you mouth to express surprise?

Laugh to show you’re entertained?

Do you find yourself sometimes zoning out, eyes glazing over and thinking about what you’re going to have for lunch? Go on…be honest!

Do you get some excited about what someone is saying and how you might build on it, that you interrupt when someone is speaking and blurt out your point of view?

I’m putting my hand up to all these things. Guilt as charged. I’m a terrible listener.

But I didn’t realise that my listening is sub-par, you see. I thought, for the most part, that by showing I was listening – the nodding, the ‘yep, yeps’ – were like a badge saying ‘I am in this. I am listening. I am hearing you’.

Except I really wasn’t.

I’m one of the 3 out 4 people who put themselves as ‘above average’ when it comes to listening. Ha ha ha….how very deluded!

But I’m working on it.

Oscar Trimboli has been our trusted guide and coach on how to listen. Really listen. Not just pay ear-service.

So picture this. You meet someone for the first time, and you really want to get to know them. Understand their story. Their hopes, dreams, fears. But as you sit with them, face to face, and they tell you their unique, incredible, powerful and moving story, you cannot nod. You cannot smile. There’s no ‘yep, yep’s’ of encouragement. You are still. Immovable. Your face reveals nothing.

Can you even imagine how hard this is? I can tell you. You feel cold. Closed off. And frankly, a bit rude! It’s just not how we are wired. And you worry…what must this person think? I’ve asked for their story and I’m giving them no tell-tales. No signs that I agree, disagree, find it funny, moving, sad…..they must think I am a terrible person. That I’m not even listening to them.

The thing is. When you find stillness, and when you aren’t reacting to the words. You’re listening and you’re helping someone say what they need to say.

Because you’re allowing someone the respect of telling their story, and not being lead by your reaction to it. And you’re actually taking in what’s being said. What’s more, you’re letting people’s words, catch up to their thoughts. Because people think at around 900 words per minute, but they speak at around 125 words per minute. So there is a lot more going on in their heads than they can articulate.

WOW.

I couldn’t quite get over the lack of humanity in how it felt not to give any signals. But what listening to Oscar has done, is to make me aware. I might still zone out, I come back quickly ( and really, it’s not my fault, we can only listen continuously for 12 seconds. Oscar said so!),. I remove devices that are distracting me when I should be really invested in listening to what someone has to say. To hearing and understanding them. I help people to say what they haven’t been able to, by asking simply ‘tell me more….’ or I give the gift of silence and let them form the words that they are thinking.

Do I still interrupt? Yes, but far, far less. What I have to say isn’t as important as hearing someone out.

So I’m a listener-in-progress. And I can tell you, I’m hearing more than ever.