Active listening or reflective listening (what I prefer to call Reflective RESPONDING) is well known in the field of communication and interpersonal relations, but it is taught to only a very small percentage of the American public, and even then, it is often not taught well. In my opinion, it is not enough to explain the concepts to people and perhaps show a role-play, perhaps even tell them to go practice. Most people can grasp a concept through explanation and observation, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be able to perform in ordinary interactions in real life. They must be taught through an incremental skill development process that creates habits, sort of like developing “muscle memory.”
As a result of this tragic lack of education in our culture, most of us are completely ignorant of the transformative power of this “strategy,” as I call it. But it is really so much more than a “strategy.” This strategy, when learned, practiced, and used often, can transform us like no other. We grow spiritually, setting aside our selfish agenda, being generous with our time, serving others, “slaying our flesh,” growing our patience, and gradually accepting the truth that we are not at the center of the universe. Ironically, when we are self-sacrificial in this way, we then can benefit even from a self-focused perspective. We’re then more likely to have influence, sell a product or service, reduce stress and conflict, and so much more. After listening to this podcast, be sure to use the free workshop too, so that you can finally experience the life-giving and transformative power of this strategy!
The word “listening” isn’t even that accurate. It’s what you have accomplished in your mind and heart, and then what you SAY in response. Hence, I call it The Reflective Response. Enjoy the free training on the Workshops page, and please contact me with your progress report, questions, and other comments.
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Hi everyone! I’m Carol Diane and THIS is Happiness Reclaimed. You were born for the pursuit of happiness which means rising toward your potential mentally, physically, and spiritually, living a life of love with deep meaning and purpose. We’re leaving behind the emotional stress, bad health, and empty spirituality of today, to practice powerful life strategies in a mind-body-spirit approach to wellness. It’s time to reclaim your life. Let’s go.
Today we’re covering Powerful Life Strategy #3.
If you’ve listened to any of my other podcasts, you know that everything I say is for educational purposes only and at no time am I telling you what to do in a specific situation. Only you can decide what’s right for you in a given moment. Your participation in any way with the Happiness Reclaimed organization signifies your understanding of, and agreement with, these terms.
Strategy #1 was Use General I-statements and Strategy #2 was Agree Before Disagreeing.
So here we go with Strategy #3. A lot of people including me think this is your #1 most important, most valuable communication technique of all time. Do you want to transform you life with just one change in your communication? This is probably it.
The late, great Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, called this technique “the single most important principle in the field of interpersonal relations.”
I’ve seen the power of this as the sender of the message. And I have felt the RELAXING power when I was the recipient. In some cases, it feels like receiving a low dose of tranquilizer or sedative. Very soothing and comforting.
With this strategy, you’ll have a greater ability to get close to people. You’ll build trust and rapport. You’ll be able to reduce tension and eliminate conflict.
You’ll eliminate confusion and then some of the squabbles that arise from miscommunication. You’ll be a better listener, and people LOVE a good listener. So you have the potential to improve pretty much all your relationships and even short-term interactions with strangers in daily life.
You’ll most likely gain power and influence. That’s why this technique is also taught in sales training and in the field of negotiation.
And if you’ll commit to doing this for people, you will increase your own internal strength and patience and spiritual growth. And if that’s not enough, you can literally heal other people emotionally with this technique. I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the value of this strategy.
We could call it empathy or reflective listening or active listening, but the listening word doesn’t explain what you’re doing. It’s not really the listening. It’s how you respond that makes the difference. I call it Reflective Responding or The Reflective Response. You will reflect back to the speaker what he or she is saying, maybe word for word in a few situations, but most likely just paraphrasing. And you’ll sometimes add a little Accuracy Check to see if you understood correctly. Things like “Is that right?” “Did I understand correctly?” There are many of them. Now that’s basically it in a nutshell, but don’t be thinking we’re done. That’s why I take three hours to teach it, and I’ll tell you in a bit how to get that training for free.
Now this isn’t too hard for any of us when we’re discussing topics of low importance, but when our emotions start to rise, if we’re not careful, we’ll let this skill fly right out the window and then we’ll respond in a way that makes the situation worse or even creates a disaster. But remember our theme from my book Happiness Reclaimed: “No, we’re not doing this anymore!” No more disasters. Instead, success and happiness and so many other benefits.
Now I know some people have become aware of this technique through marriage counseling or professional training, and a small percentage of THEM might dismiss the technique as silly. That tells me they don’t understand it—maybe they don’t WANT to understand it—or maybe they just have no clue because, I’m telling you, if you master this, I mean really master it, you will have mastered and transformed YOURSELF as well, and you can help to transform others.
If you’ve been taught this technique and tried it, but got bad results, I believe it’s likely no one taught you to do it correctly. That’s why I take about three hours to teach this in a live workshop when those are arranged, OR in my very simple video training available free on my website, to make sure you know what you’re doing.
One example of this wrong teaching was a woman in one of my workshops. She was a telephone customer service employee and she was REQUIRED to use this technique by her management, and they would listen in to make sure she was using it, but she complained to me that customers would get irritated with her for being so repetitive.
I explained to her that tells me her management didn’t understand how to use the technique properly and they were not training her to use it in a natural way. It WILL be irritating if we parrot the customer’s words to some kind of extreme degree.
A natural way for the customer service employee to respond would be to repeat only a few words and incorporate them into something like “I’d be happy to help you figure out” whatever they were asking for. The partial repetition reassures the caller that the request has been heard and understood, but the employee would also be adding that she’s happy to help. That way, the response doesn’t sound like parroting.
Actually, just as an aside, There are times when parroting someone is extremely helpful, and I cover those situations in my Reflective Response Workshop.
As you use this technique more and more, I think you’ll be surprised at how you feel yourself improving and you’ll notice people responding to you in a better and better way. And in the short term, if you need to, you can just let people know, “Bear with me. I’m working on becoming a better communicator.” I predict they will be glad to hear that, not feel critical towards you.
With this technique or strategy, we’re learning how to look at others with soft eyes. We’re learning to respond with a soft spirit. We’re relaxing, slowing down our minds, practicing mindfulness, and taking the time to honor others, which helps them feel like honoring us in return. We’re helping others feel HEARD AND UNDERSTOOD.
So why is THAT sopowerful, so emotionally moving? Stephen Covey said, “the deepest need of the human soul is to be understood.”
I think maybe the deepest need of the human soul is to connect to God, but I agree with Covey’s idea that feeling understood is unbelievably important to every one of us. So I hope you’re starting to see the amazing opportunity you have with this strategy.
We won’t use The Reflective Response constantly. There is a time for the I-statements that comprise Strategy No 1, and there’s a time for the statements of agreement, which comprise Strategy No 2, and there are times when we need to ask questions and so on. But using the Reflective Response as your default response is a smart way to go.
And the benefits are worth stating over and over:
- Help others feel heard and understood
- Reduce both confusion and tension;
- Resolve conflict
- Build trust and rapport
- Enhance emotional intimacy
- Boost influence or persuasive power
- Build internal strength and patience Which also builds your feeling of self-mastery and enhances your enlightenment
- You can literally heal people emotionally.
- And for #9, we’ll cross into the business world and add that we’ll improve teamwork, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction Which in turn improves every other business metric such as revenue, net profit, productivity, efficiency and waste reduction and so on. And I already mentioned the value of this technique for sales and negotiation.
Considering all of this, maybe you better understand why the Reflective Response is the number one skill taught to counselors. But in my opinion, every single American age 12 and up should be taught how to do this. Our culture spends years teaching us to read and write, and maybe a little training in public speaking, but virtually no training in listening. How bizarre is that? It’s tragic.
I have been teaching this strategy for over 10 years, when I wasn’t busy fighting cancer and other challenges, and it only takes about three hours for you to truly grasp the concept, start practicing, and get the skill added to your bag of tools for life. It’s not the be all and end all but it is, as Covey said, the single most important change you could make in your communication, which then changes your whole life, and the lives of those you encounter.
On my website, Happiness Reclaimed.com, you’ll find testimonials about the power of this change. Look for the workshop called The Reflective Response.
I have seen lives truly changed.
I’m absolutely convinced that the use of this strategy could make the difference between:
- A happy marriage vs. a divorce
- Business success vs. business failure
- A successful career vs. mediocre unhappy career
- Stable friendships vs. ruined friendships
- Proper medical diagnosis vs. wrong diagnosis
- Proper medical treatment vs a medical disaster
- A happy family vs. a family with conflict and perhaps even mental illness and other kinds of tragedy.
And as Covey used to say, with this technique it’s like now the two of you are standing together here, looking at the problem over there. Rather than being caught up in some kind of adversarial power struggle, butting heads, now the two of you are happy collaborators, united in an effort to solve some problem. What could be better than uniting with others for a common cause?
So again, please go to Happiness Reclaimed.com and take advantage of this free workshop called The Reflective Response. You can work through the material on your own and just do the practice opportunities with a partner over the phone, or you are welcome to use this video course in any size group. I just ask that you respect my intellectual property, do not duplicate my files or charge people for attending your workshop.
So this completes the first three Strategies, all part of the MIND portion of mind-body-spirit wellness.
Powerful Strategies 4-6 will offer the potential for instant change in the Body so that we can improve physical health, and I know research shows if you start having a positive impact on your physical health, which includes your gut microbiome, your mood and energy levels can improve as well. Strategies 7-9 deal with our spiritual growth, an important part of happiness. Mind Body and Spirit are amazingly interconnected. They really can’t be separated. Other cultures have understood this for thousands of years. It’s time we return to being who we’re really meant to be.
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If you have any questions at all, please contact me at HappinessReclaimed.com. I’ll try to answer those questions in a future broadcast. So that’s it for today. Love ya guys.
