Friday Apr 04, 2025

116 - The Golden Rules of Listening – Part 3: Strengthening Business Partnerships & Relationships

March 26th, 2025 - 00:56:14

Show Summary:

In this episode, Jimmy Lea from The Institute for Automotive Business Excellence is joined by life coach Juliana Sih of Crescendo Coaching for a masterclass on the Golden Rules of Listening. Together, they explore how powerful listening skills can transform your business, relationships, and leadership approach. Juliana shares actionable insights and data-backed reasons why deep listening is essential, offering tools to increase awareness and intentionality. Through real-life examples and practical exercises, listeners learn how to minimize distractions, let go of judgment, and build trust through reflective communication. Whether you're managing a shop or navigating personal challenges, these skills can help you unlock better conversations and stronger connections.

Host(s):

Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development

Guest(s):

Juliana Sih, founder of Crescendo

Episode Highlights:

[00:00:00] – Jimmy introduces the webinar's interactive format and the power of today's topic: life-saving communication.

[00:00:59] – Juliana Sih joins and shares her passion for helping leaders and teams grow through better conversations.

[00:04:08] – Juliana introduces the “Golden Rules of Listening” and how applying them can increase your skills by 30%.

[00:07:36] – Only 2% of people are formally trained in listening, yet it's the most-used communication skill.

[00:10:53] – Listening is crucial for building trust, catching key details, and aligning teams for better decision-making.

[00:15:09] – Juliana introduces the three levels of listening and how great leaders operate at level three.

[00:20:49] – The group discusses what makes a good vs. bad listener, with input from the live audience.

[00:28:22] – Active listening involves full-body engagement and thoughtful clarification to build connection.

[00:30:29] – Golden Rule #1: Be Present - Juliana shares a personal story about missing out by being mentally distracted.

[00:36:04] – Golden Rule #2: Listen Without Judgment - understand context over content and put “Bob” (your inner critic) in the back seat.

[00:44:47] – Golden Rule #3: Reflect and Rephrase - this technique helps diffuse conflict and deepen collaboration.

In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?

Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.

👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5DPfR3OZb0

Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!

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Jimmy Lea: Morning. Good evening, good night. Depending on when and where you're joining us from today, it is a beautiful day outside. Glad to be here with you in the automotive aftermarket, as we talk about all those things that you just don't always have time to talk about, these are some of those discussions that are deep conversations that really help us to take it to the next level.

Jimmy Lea: Joining me today is a life coach, and we're going to talk about some of those things that will help save your life, help save your business, help save your marriage. Help save your relationships. Help save your communication with employees and spouse and clients and customers. This is going to be a great discussion. I'm super excited for this.

Jimmy Lea: And it's to be an interactive webinar. Interactive in what way? How do we do that? We're not going to save all your questions for the very end for the Q&A. We want your questions in the middle of the discussion. So you have the voice. You are able to kick it in and join us in this conversation.

Jimmy Lea: So go to the comments button. And this is new for us. We're first time we're streaming live here with StreamYard. This is going to be awesome and amazing and so much fun. Click there in the comments button and put in where you're joining us from today. So we can give you a shout out in the comments just like that and see that there.

Jimmy Lea: It's going to give you a shout out. Super excited to be back on StreamYard. It's been a couple of years since I was on StreamYard, so I'm super excited to be back here in StreamYard to give you all a shout out. And thank you for joining us as we're having this conversation. So type in where you are joining us from.

Jimmy Lea: Those of you who are on Facebook, you can join this conversation as well. Type it into the comments. Same with those of you on joining on YouTube. Click into the comments and you can tell us where you're joining us from today. And since you are all being a little bit shy, or maybe you get comments button, I don't know who's on or who's not.

Jimmy Lea: Love to have a give you a shout out. All right. Well I guess we'll have to keep this to the three of us. I think this is going to be a great conversation we're having with the three of us. Hey, you know what it is? It's going to be a great conversation. And those of you who are watching the recording, this is some of the great information that we at the Institute are able to, give out to you as a shout out.

Jimmy Lea: And you know what? It does look like things are starting to work. We got Stu in the Salt Lake City, Utah area, and, we've got the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. Shout out from Ogden, Utah. And, well, Salt Lake. So yes, we are working that that's a, a YouTube. So it's working. Hallelujah. All right, so here we go.

Jimmy Lea: On to the next. And joining me today is Juliana. Si. She is a life coach with Crescendo Coaching. A phenomenal friend in the industry. We have done quite a few webinars together over the years talking about communicate and talking about, marriage, talking about life, talking about running a business and running a marriage and being partners in running a marriage, being partners in a marriage and running the business and not killing each other.

Jimmy Lea: So Juliana and I have had some really good conversations. I'm so excited to welcome you here. Juliana. Thank you for joining me today.

Juliana Sih:: Yes, Jenny, I'm so excited to be here again. What I love about the institute is just helping the business owners grow, be their best self, and help their employees.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, that. That's so powerful. It's so powerful when we can make a difference. And that difference comes when we lock arms together and decide that we're not going to leave anybody behind. We are all going to make this storm together, because it's a strange and crazy storm that we're in. We're all locking arms together to make sure that we can weather this storm together.

Jimmy Lea: So with that to Juliana, where are we talking about today?

Juliana Sih: Today we're going to be talking about the golden rules of listening. And I think this is a skill that is a really a game changer, because I truly believe that leaders, coach and coaches lead. And one of the great skills that I've been able to expand on, and I'm still working on it, it's a work in progress, is the skill of listening.

Juliana Sih: So I want to teach your audience and your people and your shop owners all about this skill. But if you just have a little bit of awareness and a little bit of intention, you can increase your listening skills by 30%.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. I'm down for this 30% increase. I am working on my skill of listening, so I'm super down with this information. I'm excited.

Juliana Sih: Yeah, because really listening helps to strengthen personal professional relationships. That helps you to navigate difficult conversations right? When you're triggered and you have like strong emotions inside or your employees triggered and you don't know how to be with them, listening is the key. So listening can help you break through communication barriers, and it can help foster deep and trusting relationships.

Juliana Sih: So I want your audience to do just a little quick, question. On a scale of 1 to 10, I want you to rate how would you rate your listening skills just on a scale of 1 to 10? Just think about it. Put it into the comments. I want to know where you feel like you're at with your listening skills.

Juliana Sih: Jimmy, what do you think you're listening skills are,

Jimmy Lea: I think I'm at a solid 7.5.

Juliana Sih: Beautiful. And then for the audience, too, just you don't necessarily need to think about this now, but maybe just in the back of your mind, what would make it a ten?

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, I think oh, can I answer this one.

Juliana Sih: Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: Because I think I have an idea. I think for me it's putting away the distractions. So that in that conversation, in that moment when, we're having a conversation and it's one that needs full attention, which is all conversations, I need to put away the distractions and give that the full attention because, as much as I like to think I can multitask, I really can't.

Juliana Sih: I'm fearful I'm going to talk. I'm going to actually talk about that a little bit later today. During this masterclass. So I mean, one of the what. Oh, wait. Sorry. So listening is actually the most common communication skill that we use more than speaking. We listen 45% of the time, which is almost about eight hours of our day.

Juliana Sih: And then we spend about 30% of our time speaking, and then 25% is split between like reading and writing. And the statistics are pretty sad. On listening, only 2% of people are formally trained in listening, and it's people like coaches or therapists, and most of the money that is spent on personal development and communication skill all goes to speaking rather than, and very little on listening.

Juliana Sih: So today I want to talk about, you know, why does this matter? Why does listening matter? I want to talk a little bit more about some of the statistics. I have some, things I want to read off here. I want to talk about the difference between passive listening and active listening. And then we're going to go into the three golden rules.

Juliana Sih: And then I'm going to share the rest of the rules with you. And then we'll go into some Q&A in case the we don't answer all the questions before that. So as Jimmy shared with you, my name is Juliana and I'm a leadership coach, and I help leaders find their authentic leadership style so they can make a bigger impact.

Juliana Sih: I've been doing this full time since 2018, and as a coach, my main job is to listen deeply, to be radically curious, and to ask thought provoking questions, to evoke new awareness. So what I've done with this masterclass is I've really condensed what I've learned in the past seven years as a coach and put it into really layman terms so that I can teach a business owner or a spouse and leaders in the community to deepen their listening skills.

Juliana Sih: And really, my mission with all that is to elevate conversations. One deep conversation at a time. Because all the time I hear this in my practice is like I hear people telling me that they haven't shared what's on their mind with other people, right? Like, I get that all the time. Like, people know and trust me for a reason, but I don't think I have anything special.

Juliana Sih: I think I just listen more deeply and people than open up. So that's why. That's why I care about teaching this topic. Here's a few reasons why I think you should care, right? Miscommunications happen all the time. If you can listen more deeply and you can understand the other person's lead, it's going to lead to less disagreements and unresolved issues, likely if you're not a good listener, there's a lot of frustration, and people may choose to stop sharing openly, which can lead to feeling of resentment or isolation or being left out of a conversation.

Juliana Sih: And I know as a shop owner and as a leader, you don't want that. Frustration is an energy leak. There's a lot of missed opportunities. Also, poor listening can cause you to overlook valuable information, feedback, or potential new ideas. And of course, limited growth. Bad listeners missed out on learning new perspectives that could spark personal development and make better decisions.

Juliana Sih: So really, when you can be a better listener, you can be more efficient. Effective people will trust you, and you'll have more influence in either in your community or in your business. Because I know as business owners, as leaders, you want to be more efficient, right? You want to catch kids, you want to catch key details of first time and reduce miscommunications and unnecessary back and forth.

Juliana Sih: You want to be influential. You want to get everyone aligned on the same page. You want to be able to solve problems faster by really understanding the real issue and not the surface level issues. You want more collaboration. You want people to work together, clear communication and stronger relationships. And that's really the power of deep listening.

Juliana Sih: You want to be able to make good decisions, right? When you listen deeply, you can gather insights. You can ensure you don't miss the critical information that's needed to make a really powerful decision. And you also want to build influence. Influence is built when people trust you and people trust you, when they feel heard and seen and they feel important.

Juliana Sih: And that's what listening can do. So so I hear this quote often. It's like, don't be the most interesting person in the room. Be the most interested.

Jimmy Lea: And and oh my gosh, Juliana right there. You just hit on an an on a solid topic, a solid almost another webinar. Two things that I that I hear when I hear you talking about communication and listening. As you can imagine, in high school, I in college and in life, people remind me that I have two ears and one mouth.

Jimmy Lea: So I need to listen more. And I'm trying to I'm trying to listen more. I'm trying to listen and be better. My mind tends to go pretty fast, and I try to hear what you're saying, but my mind is, and this is my fault. This is where I'm trying to draw back and listen better rather than anticipate what your problem is.

Jimmy Lea: You concern is, and I'm trying to fix it. Before you even get to your point, I need to listen better instead of thinking ahead. Are you gonna be talking about that as well? Where I want to solve all the problems and they don't even know the problem?

Juliana Sih: Yes, Jimmy, you bring it up. Such a good point. Really? There's a reason why this happens. And it's scientifically based, right? So our brain is brilliant. It can process up to 400 words per minute. And the average speaker talks about 100 words per minute. So that's only 25% of your brainpower. Guess what it's doing. The other 75% of the time it's we have our inner chat, right.

Juliana Sih: You're either like maybe judging, trying to give advice, you're trying to mind read is what you're trying to do, trying to anticipate what they're going to say so that you can try to solve their problem or you're trying to one up someone or you're trying to, or you're just daydreaming, right? Someone's talking about their weekend. You're like off thinking about the vacation you had five years ago when that pina colada.

Juliana Sih: That was delicious. So I think part of it is like we're how how do we refocus that 75% or, you know, 60%, whatever it is to something else so that we're actually present with the person. And I am going to talk a little bit about some of the things where you can, put that beautiful brain power that we have to good use.

Jimmy Lea: Nice, nice, awesome.

Juliana Sih: So there are some different levels of listening, and this is kind of something that we don't really think about. Right? There's the internal level of listening. Level one. So I want you to picture yourself at a restaurant. You're sitting with a person on the other side. Maybe you're on a first date or someone you admire. And then the waiter brings you the menu and you're looking at the menu, and you're.

Juliana Sih: This is where you're at level one. You're looking at the menu and you're like, what would look good right now? What do I what am I, crazy? The focus is on you. The spotlight is on you. Oh, should I have a drink before I start eating? What? Appetizer. Sounds good. So that's level one. All right, let's say you ordered, some spaghetti and meatballs and you're happy.

Juliana Sih: And now, level two, you're focused, listening on the other person. Your sole focus is on them. It's like the whole world could fall away, and they would just be you and the other person that's focused, listening. You're paying attention to what is said and not said. You're paying attention to their nonverbal cues. So that's level two. The spotlight is not on you, right?

Juliana Sih: Level one is on you. The spotlight is on the other person. So we're going to be talking a lot about some strategies to be more and like level two, level three is global listening. And level three includes the action, the inaction in the interaction. And it includes, like all your senses, not just your hearing, but also your senses, your intuition.

Juliana Sih: You know when you get that gut feeling, someone tells you like I'm doing fine, but deep down you kind of know, like something's up. That's global listening, that's level three listening. So I just want to distinguish these three levels because we all have access to them. Global three takes a lot of practice. The most influence, and successful people are able to practice at a level three.

Juliana Sih: They're able to read their impact and adjust accordingly. So some of this, the success that I already shared with you about listening, I told you they're a little sad. And that's okay. This this is why I want to teach this. And others already teach this to change that narrative. Right? Only 2% of people have formal education and listening.

Juliana Sih: 75% of people are preoccupied while listening. They're either thinking about their to do list. What to say next, just waiting for the other person to kind of like, stop talking. 80% of organizations spend money on speaking, but they don't spend money on listening and building the listening skills. So it's all about like talking and how to talk more effectively, but not on listening.

Juliana Sih: So we're kind of in a crisis and listening just because there's not enough, resources spent on that. I'm going to share a few other statistics here that I found. A survey found that 96% of people believe themselves to be a good listener. There's actually a Google did a three year study on trying to figure out what the most effective teams did, what made them different from other teams, and what they found is that the most successful teams were better listeners.

Juliana Sih: They were better communicators. They had, you know, when someone speaks, everyone listened and their ideas were all exchanged and shared. Everyone felt curtains heard and seen. Then they were like contributing. So the most successful teams have a good listeners where people can feel heard and seen, and they have this sense of safety within them. The funny also thing is that most people believe they're a good listener, but they think they're a better listener than they are.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. No, of course. Right. I mean, we always think that. So to to the Google analysis was, were these teams trained and taught how to do this or they just discovered that they were better listeners.

Juliana Sih: They just discovered like an outside party was evaluating, these teams. And that's what the outside party discovered is that these teams had really good communications skills internally in their team. Everyone felt like they were contributing to the whole, and everyone felt like their ideas were being heard and valued.

Jimmy Lea: Well, that's fascinating. Fascinating that that Google would analyze that within their own company to see what makes a good team great.

Juliana Sih: Yeah, yeah. Some of the other statistics here listening to 30 minutes or more of nagging complaining can negatively affect the brain problem solving skills. Active listening is identified by 64% of HR professionals as the most critical leadership skill. Being able to actively listen is shown to increase productivity and collaboration by up to 25%, and it's also shown to reduce the number of misunderstandings by 40%.

Juliana Sih: So a really, really valuable skill to have. I showed this a little bit earlier, but we spent a lot of time listening. 45% of our time is spent listening. 30% is spent speaking, and then around 25 is writing. And, reading. So I would love to hear from the audience a little bit about what they think.

Juliana Sih: Hang on this, which may I said, let's talk a little bit about the good, the bad and the ugly of listening. So I want to hear from your audience just a few things about what they what they believe is a good listener. What makes a good listener just put into the chat in the comments just right. So the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a good listener.

Jimmy Lea:

And while we're waiting for people to chat in something that I, it just reminded me I saw on Facebook, reels and on TikTok is that we listen and we don't judge. So judging, would be one that I need to work on to make sure that I'm not judging when I'm receiving information. But then the second, as a good listener would be that I am listening, not multitasking.

Jimmy Lea: So something that goes a long way for me when I'm talking to somebody or giving instruction, is for them to acknowledge. Acknowledge goes a long way in my book, attentive writing says attentive. Yes, absolutely.

Juliana Sih: Using mirroring, repeating what they're saying.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, yeah. And I love that Mary said this because in that mirroring, the sender of the information is able to hear what you heard, and it might not be what they meant to say. It might be, oh my gosh, now that I'm hearing that back, wait, there's a couple of changes we need to make to that because that a lot.

Juliana Sih: Yes. You bring up such a good point when you mirror and when you when you can be that reflective mirror like then they also know what they're saying because most of the time people don't actually know what's coming out of their mouth. They have some ideas, but then things slip and you know, they don't know what they're saying.

Juliana Sih: But by being a mirror, they can learn about themselves as well.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And I like John suggestion here too. And there's a fine line. I don't know if you can talk about this or not. Juliana, in asking questions is asking questions that are good and important, but at what point does it go to an interrogation from the the receiver side? You're asking me questions. Well, at what point does it go from you're asking me questions to now it feels like you're just interrogating me.

Juliana Sih: Yeah. That really has to do with the quality of the question. You really want to make sure that it's not pointed, right? Like if someone's telling me about, like, their marriage and they're struggling and I ask, well, why don't you just divorce them? See, I'm going to that is. And how like, instead of like, oh, what? Don't what don't what aren't you happy with in your marriage?

Juliana Sih: So really that really depends on the quality of the question that you ask. You want to make sure that a you're being curious, you don't know the answer. Right. And also you're not leading them somewhere and you want to ask an open ended question. Not like a yes no question which usually starts with a what. Versus like a did or how goes sometimes in the explanation and people can feel a little bit defensive also when they have to explain themselves.

Juliana Sih: But there's a purpose and reason for those types of questions as well.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, yeah for sure. It's something that, that I've, discovered in my communication, is, acknowledge before you go asking me the next question, I need some sort of a verbal cue body cue that says you're hearing me. You're listening. You understand? There may be, affirming, confirming, acknowledging or saying yes. And, that goes deeper into it.

Jimmy Lea:

So, if I get a barrage of questions, probably three in a row without acknowledgment, then I it feels and I'm discovering this about me. I mean, I'm 51 years old and I'm finally learning these things that I, I feel, interrogated.

Juliana Sih: Yeah. And it's. Yeah. You mentioned something really important to asking one question at a time.

Jimmy Lea: Yes.

Juliana Sih: Oh, yes. When you stack questions, people get overwhelmed. They don't know where to, where to start, what to answer first. So really, like, you know, asking good questions, the quality of the question matters. Making sure it's from curiosity, but also, yeah, asking a simple question as you can long winded questions are also make it very difficult because, there's like some explanation in there and, you know, other components.

Juliana Sih: The most powerful questions are the simplest.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah, for sure. I learned, 15 years ago about asking multiple questions at the same time. They'll only answer the last question. The first two weeks, they don't even remember what they were, but they'll answer the last one.

Juliana Sih: Yes, yes. Beautiful. So good leaders, we have a very good responses here. Very attentive. They're focused, they're connected. And they're responding either by nodding, nodding, acknowledging that they are either here in you, seeing you, or in the conversation with you. All right. Let's talk about a bad listener. What are the qualities of a bad listener or just like someone who's not?

Juliana Sih: Yeah, I don't like the word bad, but, you know, a bad listener. Let's talk about that. What are some of the qualities of that?

Jimmy Lea: I think distraction is top of the list.

Juliana Sih: Yes.

Jimmy Lea: Or dismissive. That is right up there with, being distracted, dismissive. Yeah. My my concerns, my questions, my comments, my concerns have no weight in your world. And you're going to just dismiss me.

Juliana Sih: Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: Maybe I didn't say right. Maybe we need to repeat this, but, yeah. Dismissive that’s a...

Juliana Sih: That's a tough right. It makes you feel like, disrespected or not important or just like you're they're not even listening, right. They interrupt. Bad listeners also are closed minded. They just want to, like, share their ideas. And they're not actually even it doesn't even feel like they're allowing what the other person is saying to enter.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, it feels in those situations it doesn't feel like a discussion. It feels like a instruction.

Juliana Sih: Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: Like I'm being instructed and told what to do, where to go, what to think. And that's not good. Nobody wants to have that type of a relationship with a business partner, a client, a spouse.

Juliana Sih: Yeah. People really want collaboration. Yeah. And that's where, like, the listening skill can really come in. Is like, if you want to collaborate on a solution, right? Everyone has input, then everyone's involved, everyone's aligned. Everyone's like, ready to go because they all felt like they contributed. And they're part of the whole, something else that makes people or that looks a little too busy.

Juliana Sih: They're distracted. They're, you know, they're on their phone, they say they're listening, but you kind of know they're they're not.

Jimmy Lea: There's some that I've seen before is, talking over here. I am telling you about a situation or a story or some information and, it's it's as if, though I'm not even there. I'm not even talking because somebody just comes in, blows right over the conversation, takes right over it.

Juliana Sih: Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: That's very frustrating.

Juliana Sih: So common because we all want to like, relate it to ourselves also. And then we don't need to bring that spotlight back on us. But we unintentionally bring it back. Right?

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Juliana Sih: So it's like initially it was on you and then they want to bring it back to them, but not intentionally. It's just like a very subconscious thing very often.

Jimmy Lea: So what's a way to be able to do that so that we're not doing that too. It's about them. It's not about me. They're telling me about a problem, a question, a concern. And how I, I guess it's just focusing with full intent on making the conversation about them and zero about me. Is that the listening skill for that one there?

Jimmy Lea: Juliana.

Juliana Sih: Yeah, the listening skill. Again, it goes back to that, brain power like our brain has. It's so it has such a high CPU and we're not using all of it when the other person's talking. So it's just about where can I put my focus? So it's not just going back on me. So it's about listening to the content, right?

Juliana Sih: Making sure you're understanding them. It's about reading their moods and emotions like the subtle things it's about, like noticing if they have any vocal changes that are happening. Like, you know, someone says they're really they say the words, oh, I'm so excited about something. But the voice is it or the like. Body language is there. That's where you tune and that's where you put the energy when you want to actively listen.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Juliana Sih: So when you're just listening, you're, you know, focused, you're focused on the speaker, but you're not fully in it with them. You know, you might be kind of disengaged. You might be doing something else. So that's not really active listening. Yeah. Active listening is more on the, sorry, just my slides. Active listening is more being fully with the speaker.

Juliana Sih: It's having the spotlight, being fully on the person. You're understanding the speaker's message, you're understanding their feelings. You're understanding their perspective. You're putting yourselves in their shoes so you can try to understand them completely and do your focus on understanding and responding thoughtfully. And you take into account those verbal and nonverbal cues to understand. You make eye contact with your present within you.

Juliana Sih: Ask clarifying questions. How often has someone been talking to you? And they're chatting about something and you're lost, but you're just like, yeah, yeah, right. Instead of pausing and being like, actually, hang on a second, I'm not quite sure what you're saying there. Can you clarify that? So active listening is all about, you know, engage in the conversation and ask those clarifying questions and paraphrasing.

Juliana Sih: So active listening aims to understand passive listening is just hearing. You know active listening involves reflective responses and asking clarifying questions and involves the whole body, not just the words. It involves the mood and the motion, the body language, the vocal changes. So that's where all that CPU can go, right? Because in listening, the thing that we're doing often is we're judging not I don't mean like bad judging, but we're just judging what the person saying, whether it's good or bad, whether it's right or wrong.

Juliana Sih: We might be trying to give advice for like, I know the exact solution to make this person, successful. And then you're thinking about all the advice that you want to give. But unfortunately, that's not active listening. We all have really good intentions. We want to help people, but the best way we can help people is by active listening.

Juliana Sih: So the thing about listening is we often think we are better at listening than we really are. Study showed that managers will rate themselves high on listening, but their employees who report to them will rate those same managers as poor listeners. So we all think we're, like, better listeners than we are. And I think that's just because we have a lot of blind spots when it comes to listening.

Juliana Sih: You know, we learn listening from our families, peers and our life experience, mostly through trial and trial and errors. And they've and we've just compounded over the years, they have become habits that we don't even realize are getting in the way. So like I mentioned earlier, just a little bit of awareness and, just a little bit of awareness and some attention can go a long way when it comes to listening.

Juliana Sih: All right. We're going to get into some of the rules now. And Jimmy, you are so spot on with some of the things that you talked about earlier. Because the golden rule number one is be present. And I know this sounds repetitive and simple, but we have to put it into practice. Because this is the one of, one of the key ways to really be with the other person.

Juliana Sih: We got to be present. You know, we're often thinking about the future, the past, how it's gone, how much you know this person, how much you know about their problems. And then we can't be with who they are in this moment. I'll share a story about a time with my boss. Hang on. Oops. When I thought I was being present and I wasn't.

Juliana Sih: So I was in a one on one with my boss, and they were walking me through some, like, crucial technical aspects of my job, and she was like, dropping some gems, some insights, things that would have made me better, faster, more effective. But where was I in my head? I was miles away. I was like thinking about some personal problem that needed fixing.

Juliana Sih: So on the outside I look like I was listening. I was nodding, making eye contact, even throwing in the occasional but I wasn't actually there. And then I realized at some point that I was just completely lost. And I had no idea what she was just saying. And instead of owning up to it and interrupting her and being like, hey, can you like, repeat that?

Juliana Sih: Or can you say that again? Some way to get back, engage in the and the conversation? I was too embarrassed to just do that. So I just kept nodding, hoping she wouldn't notice. And by the time I walked away, I knew that conversation had been really a complete waste of time. I had missed something important, something that could have helped me grow simply because I wasn't truly listening.

Juliana Sih: And here's a real impact, right? Not only did I miss out, but my boss wasted her time pouring knowledge into someone who wasn't even present. And that's the thing about listening. It's not just about hearing the words knowledge. It's about like doing the the the gestures. It's about showing up and being fully present and respecting the person speaking by actually taking in what they're sharing.

Juliana Sih: Like the one of the key ways to build respect is by acknowledging and listening to the other person, especially in a world of so many distractions. So one of the things you mentioned earlier, Jenny, was put away your distractions. One of the simplest things we can do is put away our distractions. Right. I don't need you to throw your phone out, but, yeah, put your phone away.

Juliana Sih: Put it on silent. If you're on a zoom call and you know all your windows distract you, close them all down. Keep it simple so that you can put all your attention. On to the other person. If you know that being in the office is distracting for you to be present and you can't focus, go have a one on one out on a walk.

Juliana Sih: Get creative with what works for you. I tell people, like, if you're meeting someone at a coffee shop and you know you're facing the door is going to be distracting because you're just going to watch people going back, you know, in and out, like face the other way. So these are just like simple things you can do to start being more present with people.

Juliana Sih: Because at the end of the day, people are always revealing something about themselves for a reason. And as a listener, it's your job to try to find out. Why are they telling me this? Why is this important to them? What does it say about their values, their worldview, and what they care about? And I think one of the things that we forget is we have to be responsible for minimizing distractions, right?

Juliana Sih: Like, if, you know, like when me and my husband try to have a conversation and the kids are around, we can't have a conversation because, you know, two minutes in, my daughter wants something, the other one's crying. So I have to be be intentional and create a space. Honey, let's talk when the kids are asleep. And then I have to remember to go back and do that.

Juliana Sih: So this can look many different ways for each relationship in your life, but you need to figure out what works for you, right? To be present if it you know, I think we talked about this in another webinar, Jimmy, where when you cross a bridge, you don't talk about any more work, right? If you work together and are married and have a business together, like you have that bridge where you, don't talk about work anymore, that's very similar.

Juliana Sih: Like be present, like set yourself up to be present. Get curious with other person. Create an internal game for yourself. You know, ask why are they sharing this? What? What has them share in this room? Why is this important to them? What are they experiencing as they share them? So getting curious, asking questions. And I think the thing that we really forget is it's okay if there's silence in between.

Juliana Sih: We're so used to thinking that we need to fill in the space, that we need to think of our response. We don't. If there's like a three second silent pause, that's okay. Just let them know that you're thinking about your response and you're really absorbing the information that they're giving you. Oh, I realized, sorry. The other thing to do is start a simple practice of meditation.

Juliana Sih: I think I think one of the most important things that we can do as humans in general is like learn how to quiet our mind. And that's what presence is also with other people. If we can learn to quiet our mind and train ourselves either through meditation or through other practices, then that can really help people be present.

Juliana Sih: Something else that you can put your focus on as you're being present is notice if someone is stating some contradiction, you know, like if someone is saying that, they're doing fine, but they look really sad, or they're saying, that they're really excited about something, but then they on another set and this sentence, they say they're really mad.

Juliana Sih: Notice start noticing those contradiction. The real powerful thing about listening is that you can help the person speaking see themselves in a new way.

Juliana Sih: Okay. We're going to go on to Golden rule number two. Jimmy, you talked about this too. So I love it. Listen, without judgment. Yeah, judge. And I don't mean judgment, like in a bad way. I think this is, you know, what is judgment. Let's talk about that for a second. Judgment is a mental habit of labeling or categorizing someone's word are literally judgment making machines.

Juliana Sih: That's how we evolved. That's how we've probably survived, is we need to be able to evaluate people fairly quickly. But there's also probably holding us back now, it's often based on our past experiences, past conditioning, and often it looks like being right or wrong, agreeing or disagreeing. And it's really a self-protection mechanism. Part of the reason, why we judge is because our egos like to be right.

Juliana Sih: We want to be right. So it's a self-protection mechanism. We don't want to be we don't want to be vulnerable. So we try to fill in what we already know about the person. So we don't have to be in the unknown. Like, for example, if you like, label someone as, let's say, like you label someone, let's say you're going to go into a conversation and you already know this person is kind of like you think they're a jerk, right?

Juliana Sih: You're going to experience them as being a jerk just because you already have that prejudgment about them. So that's that's kind of the impact of judge, judging is that we it's a filter. It acts as a filter in our listening. If you know you're going to meet someone and they're energetic and fun, you're going to show up differently than if you think they're a jerk.

Juliana Sih: So those judgments will filter what we hear and what we see in the person. Does that make sense?

Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh, yeah, it totally does. Not only from, prejudging somebody for for where you think they are, but there's also that judgment that says under these same circumstances, I had something similar happened to me before, and this is what I learned from it. And this is what I want to avoid. You may need to ask more questions because not all circumstances are the same.

Jimmy Lea: Not all conditions are the same. It might be a different situation and asking more questions will help you to discover. Yes, you've had this great experience in the past that's helped you to ask the right questions today to avoid conflict.

Juliana Sih: Yeah, yeah. And that's what judgment does. That really shuts down our curiosity and our empathy with it, which are like two cornerstones of listening. And then we have we think we can mind read or know who they are. So letting go of judgment is really important when it comes to listening. And it's all about awareness with judgment, like, what are we judging about?

Juliana Sih: Who, what, what do I think about this person? Sometimes it's as simple as just like writing out what you think. So you can see it on paper. And the real reason why letting go of our judgments is important is because then we can understand the context of a conversation, and the context means understanding the full story behind what someone else's, what someone is saying.

Juliana Sih: When you understand your judgment, you can move the conversation from content to context. So content is just like what's being said. The words, facts, data, surface level, information, context is a deeper meaning behind what is being said includes emotions, intentions, perspective, the bigger picture you want to get. Like the 10,000ft view of why is your employee telling you this?

Juliana Sih: Like do they have a suggestion? Do they want to make an improvement? Or are they struggling and frustrated? Do they need time off? Sometimes when people are sharing, they're all in the content. And if you can put your judgment down and you can get to the 10,000ft view, then you can understand their context of the conversation. You don't want to be in the weeds as a leader.

Juliana Sih: You want to be in the context. Understanding the bigger picture of why they're sharing, what they're sharing. So, you know, context. What's being said. Staying here leads to reacting rather than understanding. Just imagine like, you you know, I can't believe I have to stay late at work again. Right? From content, you might be like, oh, well, you know, maybe it's really busy.

Juliana Sih: I'm sorry, you have to say, like, maybe you're going to try to make them feel better, right? Versus maybe what they're if you're looking at it from a context point of view, you're going to understand what's really being expressed. Are they frustrated? Are they feeling unappreciated? Are they feeling disrespected or they're feeling like their boundaries aren't aren't being honored?

Juliana Sih: That's the power of being able to uplevel the conversation and getting into the context.

Juliana Sih: So context means understanding the full story. It means what's really going on here? Why is this person, what does this person feeling or need right now? This behind every complaint is a need. But people don't know how to share their need directly. So they might be complaining or, or be shut down. It depends on the person. So if you want to stop judgment in real time, there are few things you can do right?

Juliana Sih: Take a breath, breathe. And just like try to bring yourself back into the present because the judgment is all up here in our head thinking right? Get back down to the breath, acknowledge the bias. Maybe recognize you know, I like to I like to name my judgment. I like to name him Bob. Oh Bob's around like oh is he like trying to protect me.

Juliana Sih: What is, what is Bob need right now. Right. Because it is a self-protection like judging is a self-protection mechanism and sometimes it's needed but also acknowledging like oh Bob's around. Oh Bob, I don't really need you. You can take you can, you can be in the back seat. Thanks, I got this. I can drive a car.

Jimmy Lea: That's funny. That's really good. I acknowledging the bias. I think that is probably going to help me a lot. Going forward, because, I want to listen better. I want to not judge according to past. And my might have to park Bob for a minute. Yeah. So I can listen without the prejudice of of things of of the past.

Juliana Sih: Yes. Yeah, yeah. Something that I also find helpful, but I didn't share in the being present is maybe find something that helps you be present. Right. When I started coaching, I would just doodle on paper. I wasn't like trying to be an artist, but I would just doodle because it would help me to, listen better. By just like writing on my page, like writing little drawing little things on my paper.

Juliana Sih: So sometimes maybe it's like you have a squishy ball where it's just like, you know, that physical thing that helps you to be present.

Jimmy Lea: Right?

Juliana Sih: But yeah, and also naming that part of you, we all have different personalities. We all have like a little internal family, and they all have different roles, but they're not always needed. Bob doesn't need to be here. Thank you, Bob, for being here. I see you, I hear you take a backseat. Please. Stopping judgment in real time can look like asking any questions, right?

Juliana Sih: If you're asking questions, you're more concerned with the other person. You're not in your head judging or do an empathy check with the other person, like, oh, what is this person actually feeling like? Put yourself in your shoes and that will get you outside of your head, inside of the judgment. And the outcome of that really is helping the person that you're talking to feel understood, connected, seen and heard.

Juliana Sih: It's really all about them feeling safe with you because that's when they trust you, and that's when you have more influence. All right. Moving on to, golden rule number three. I think someone mentioned in the comments before, but we're going to talk about it, reflect and reflect. Rephrase.

Jimmy Lea: So Mary was talking about that with the mirroring repeating what they're saying. So yeah. Thank you Mary that this is rule number three.

Juliana Sih: Yeah. Rule number three. And this practice is really powerful because when you reflect and validate, it shows the person not only that you're listening and you're there, but that you truly understand them, that you honor their experience. And these are some of the keys to building trust, empathy, and stronger connection. Because as I mentioned earlier, most people don't know what is coming out of their mouth.

Juliana Sih: So being their mirror helps individuals gain clarity and insight into their own thoughts and emotions, and knowing this will help them make more informed decision. Also, this is a great way to use some of those CPAs of our brain as it ensures that we're listening and understanding what they're saying, because people just want to feel understood. And that's the simplest way to start a rephrase and reflect conversation, as you say.

Juliana Sih: Like what I'm hearing is I think people think that you have to parrot the exact same words, and that's not what you need to do at all. You need to summarize and rephrase what the person is saying, and make sure that you're on the same page with them so that you're really getting what they're saying. The power of this reflection and rephrase is amazing in resolving conflict because it shifts the focus from it.

Juliana Sih: Shift the focus for me, the spotlight on me to the other person. Right. And that's important because when we're in a conflict, there's a lot of emotions in the space, and the conversation is often not very constructive. Let's say, for example, you know, I tell my husband, you never help around the house, right? If my husband goes into like, well, actually, you know, I take the garbage out and, you know, I did this for the kids and I did that for the kids, that would not lead to any good, fruitful conversation.

Juliana Sih: What now? If he said something like, sounds like you're feeling overwhelmed with the household chores, how can we balance things out? Can you see how that would be a very different conversation from going into defense? Because then there's collaboration. Then it's people getting on the same page and feeling heard. And that's the power of rephrasing and reflecting.

Juliana Sih: It's like people feel heard. They feel seen. And they open up to you. And it also reduces emotional escalation. When people are emotion, people tend to react quickly. When people react quickly, we want to go into defense. We want to use that self-protection mechanism. When we can rephrase things, we slow down the conversation and we tune into the present and we slow things down.

Juliana Sih: And then the reframing helps shift from the negative emotions to potential solutions. So the next time you are going to argument, I challenge for for everyone here, use the reframe and reflect and see what happens. It's going to be it's a it's a game changer because you're not going to go into defense trying to defend yourself. You're going to go into potential solutions.

Jimmy Lea: Julianne, I really like that. Because I, I personally, feel like when I'm attacked, I and I go on the defense, I need to put in a whole ton of grace into that situation, which I'm going to implement going forward, is reflecting back and trying to certainly de-escalate the situation about the house and the chores and not doing things.

Juliana Sih: Yes, yes. And then there will be collaboration. You'll be on the same page again, because when you're on the opposite team, you're you're fighting, you know, in some way, shape or form. And the reflecting and rephrasing will help you get back on the same team with some solutions versus just talking about the problem. So here's why this works.

Juliana Sih: It reduces misunderstandings and the emotional escalation. It promotes empathy and understanding. Connections shifts from a reactive response to a thoughtful dialog, and it encourages collaborative problem solving. So I was going to, oh, sorry.

Jimmy Lea: Oh.

Juliana Sih: So here's the practice for you to take on the next time you're in a conflict. The next time you want to use this, reflect and reflect. Just pause and listen fully focus on the words that are being said. Focus on what they're doing with their body language and then rephrase it. Rephrase what they said to you to make sure you're understanding.

Juliana Sih: Because when we're in our emotions, we have that filter, right? We have like a similar filter to judgments that can alter emotions, make us poor listeners, to be honest. Like when we're either when we're excited or also negatively like if were frustrated. So that makes us, our listening goes down when we're having those strong emotions. So by rephrasing and reframing, you can get back to the present and make sure you're in the conversation.

Juliana Sih: So here's an example. No one at work is listening to my ideas, right? Someone could say, oh, that's not true. Like I listen to your ideas. You have really good ideas. You might try to be making them feel better. You might try to be like minimizing their experience. But the power of reframe and rephrase is, oh, it sounds like you're feeling frustrated and move it.

Juliana Sih: Maybe even a little dismissed. That shifts where the conversation will go.

Juliana Sih: So I have a practice for you, to do, homework. I want you to practice with someone I want you can do this with anyone, whether it's with your spouse, with your business partner. But I just want you to for two minutes. Just share a little bit about the context of this exercise for two minutes.

Juliana Sih: I want one person to share a short frustration, and then the other person is just going to listen. And then they're going to practice rephrasing and reflecting. They're going to listen. They're going to practice reflecting reflecting and then just switch. So go practice it with your partner and go practice it with a friend. Get someone enrolled and doing this I wanted to do this live, but we're in a we don't quite have breakout rooms like I was hoping.

Juliana Sih: So, do this at home, though. Do this at home. Because, really, I mean, I want you to imagine a world where you're running a meeting and everyone's feeling heard and engaged. Kind of like at Google, right? The best teams, they feel heard, they're engaged, they feel like they're making a contribution. Imagine if your team was running like that.

Juliana Sih: Imagine if your relationships with loved ones or colleagues felt easier with less conflicts. Imagine instead of reacting, you can be fully present and listen. That's the power of building the skill. So just to kind of recap, we've gone through the three golden rules of listening. Stay present, listen instead of judging, reflect and rephrase. Now I created a cheat sheet that I want to share with you all.

Juliana Sih: Where it's going to help you to nail communication. It's this cheat sheet has like kind of all the golden rules, plus a few things. And what I want you to do with this guide is I want you to download it. I'm going to have a QR code on the next slide, and then I want you to print it out, print out this cheat sheet.

Juliana Sih: And then I want you to practice one of these each day. Use the Kiss method message method. Keep it simple. Just pick one and utilize that one per day. The great thing about listening and deepening the skill is that intention and practice go a long way. Literally, you can increase your listening skills by 30% just by kind of knowing these things and practicing it regularly.

Juliana Sih: So here's a QR code for the cheat sheet. Go ahead and do that. Now print it out. Pick one that you do daily. Put it in in your office or somewhere you can see it and then practice it consistently. Literally. You can change the way you listen with just something as simple as this. And then, of course, there are a few more golden rules to listening, right?

Juliana Sih: We talked about the first three today. And then of course there's asking powerful questions which we kind of touched upon, as Jimmy, as we were talking. The next golden rule is be curious. The next golden rule is watch for those nonverbal cues, whether it's in yourself or others. And number seven, acknowledge and stay silent. So I know we're up at how are we doing a time, Jimmy?

Jimmy Lea: We're right up at the end. I mean, like, professionally, you've entered exactly on time.

Juliana Sih: Okay. I'm just going to leave it at that. I did have a few more things to share, but if anyone is ready to learn more about the next Golden Rules, please book a quick call with me. And I'd be happy to share more because I do have a little mini course kind of sharing all of these seven rules that I'm going to be doing.

Juliana Sih: So if you're interested in learning more and you want to unlock the seven Golden Rules, please book a call with me and we can chat about it. And then.

Jimmy Lea: That's it. Nice. Oh my gosh, such great information. Julianna, thank you so much. This is how people can communicate with you. Send an email to coach at Giuliana cch.com C is ach.com. And this is your office phone number (831) 245-5362. Yep. All right. Very good. That's awesome. Well thank you so much, Julianna. And I hope that we can be better listeners.

Jimmy Lea: It's definitely something that is hard work, something you have to consciously, effectively do every day. All day is listening. Listening to yourself, listening to that other person.

Juliana Sih: Yes. And that's a beautiful thing. You can practice every single time you talk to someone. You can just be like, oh yeah, let me practice that presence. Oh yeah, let me practice that rephrasing and reframing. There's always an opportunity to practice and there's simple. But yes, it's hard Jimmy. It's simple consistency just like learning the piano. But we all have we all have the instrument already.

Juliana Sih: We just got to learn how to use it.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, that instrument's there. We got to learn how to use it. And once we do, we'll play beautiful music. Nice. Well, thank you very much. My name is Jimmy Lee. I'm with the Institute for Motor Business Excellence. My guest today, Julianne C with Crescendo Coaching a life coach. She has a tremendous friend and I appreciate you being here.

116 - The Golden Rules of Listening – Part 3: Strengthening Business Partnerships & Relationships