Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

by Mark Goulston

In short, these people are driving you crazy for a simple reason: they need to matter. Want them to stop driving you crazy? Then you’ll need to satisfy that need.

If you’re trying to reach people in a state of distress, adding to their stress can be disastrous.

Only exhaling enables people to experience and express their feelings—like draining a wound—in a way that doesn’t attack others or themselves.

When you give a distressed person breathing room—a place and a space to exhale—you don’t just get the situation back to normal. You actually improve on it.

The best thing to do when someone is venting, whining, or complaining is to avoid interrupting.

“Tell me more” shows that you were listening and heard what really bothered him. It also lowers his paranoia that you’re now going to come back at him for, in essence, dumping on you.

The biggest key to helping a person vent and then exhale, however, is to let it happen.

Dissonance occurs when you think you’re coming across in one way but people see you in a totally different way.

The greatest single cause of dissonance is the fact that people behave their worst when they feel most powerless.

PEP CEO challenge sounds simple but reveals deep truths that can change a company’s future.

■ Passion is about the vision of the company. People want to believe that they’re doing an important job that makes a difference to their customers and clients, and puts a smile on their faces. ■ Enthusiasm is about execution. Even with a great vision, people lose their enthusiasm and fail to accomplish what they’re capable of doing if their leaders are dropping the ball. ■ Pride is about ethics, because few people feel proud if their company is doing something dishonest. It’s also about doing something meaningful, because as people grow older, leaving the world better than they found it becomes more important.

Warren Bennis, “When you really get where people are coming from—and they get that you get them—they’re more likely to let you take them where you want them to go.”

Don’t be afraid of sharing your vulnerabilities. Vulnerability doesn’t make you weak, it makes you accessible. Know that your vulnerability can be your strength. —KEITH FERRAZZI,

it’s much better to reach out for help before you mess up.

Owning up to your feeling of vulnerability is empowering.

When you bare your neck, however—when you find the courage to say “I’m afraid” or “I’m lonely” or “I don’t know how to get through this”—the other person will immediately mirror your true feelings.

assertive vulnerability isn’t weakness—it’s power.

When you’re cornered and everything inside you makes you feel like baring your teeth, reach deeper into yourself, feel your fear, and bare your neck instead.

STEER CLEAR OF TOXIC PEOPLE

A toxic person robs you of your self-esteem and dignity and poisons the essence of who you are. —LILIAN GLASS, PSYCHOLOGIST

it—needy people demand constant help and attention, use emotional blackmail to get it, and offer gratitude only if it keeps you on the hook.

Perpetually needy people suck the life out of you, because no matter what you do for them, it’s never enough.

In fact, the core traits of a classic psychopath—coldness, lack of empathy, self-centeredness, ruthlessness—make them some of the world’s most financially successful business leaders. The not-so-bright ones wind up in prison, but the smarter ones often wind up as CEOs.

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done. —LOUIS D. BRANDEIS,

just two quick questions: “What’s something that would be impossible?” and, “What would make it possible?”

They move a person from a defensive, closed position or a selfish, excuse-making stance into an open, thinking attitude.

Invite people to tell you what they think is impossible, and they’ll lower their guard to consider what’s possible.

When you act as if your goal is the exact opposite of what you’re trying to accomplish, that’s the Magic Paradox—and

there’s the first paradox: by saying explicitly that you know he feels that nobody understands, you’ll make him realize that you do understand.

How does the Magic Paradox work? By setting into motion a cascade of “yes” coming from the other person (“Yes, you’re right, my life is a mess, and I can’t take it anymore”), you shift the person’s attitude from disagreement to agreement.

When you start a conversation by saying “No” for another person, it opens the door for them to say “Yes.”

this approach “empathogenic communication” because it instantly fosters empathy among people who’ve previously only known antipathy or even outright hatred. Think of it as the Empathy Jolt.

So by taking people out of anger and shifting them into an empathic behavior, the Empathy Jolt moves them from the motor brain to the sensory brain.

anger and empathy—like matter and antimatter—can’t exist in the same place at the same time.

The Empathy Jolt is a powerful intervention to use when two people in your life are beating on each other brutally instead of communicating—or when at least one person is more interested in attacking than in listening.

When you use the Empathy Jolt, avoid the mistake of interjecting your own opinions during the process—even if they’re positive ones

You can’t be curious and on the attack at the same moment.

But do the unexpected by apologizing yourself, and something very different occurs: you shift a person instantly out of defensive mode and cause the individual to mirror your humility and concern.

When a person launches into an out-of-control rant about how awful the problem is and how it’s the end of the world, etc., etc., Scott simply says, calmly: “Do you really believe that?”

The trick to this approach is to ask the question (“Do you really believe that?”) not in a hostile or degrading manner, but very calmly and in a straightforward way.

Before you worry about solving someone else’s problem, find out if there really is a problem.

Instead of shutting you down, I encouraged you to go deeper by using words like “Hmmm,” “Really,” and “And so.”

“Hmmm . . .” is a tool to use when you’re facing a person who’s angry, defensive, and sure you’re the bad guy.

Ask the person politely to calm down, and you’ll send the condescending and infuriating message: “I’m sane, and you’re a flaming nutball.”

“Hmmm . . . ,” conversely, is a potent deescalator. When you use this approach, you’re not trying to shut someone up; instead, you’re telling the other person, “You’re important to me and so is your problem.” And that brings us right back to those mirror neurons.

You’ll notice, however, that it commits you to nothing. The sole purpose is to calm a person to the point where you can identify the actual problem and come up with a realistic solution.

it’s to avoid talking at each other, move beyond talking to each other, and with luck end up talking with each other.

“Hmmm?” is just one of many phrases that can rapidly defuse a conversation that’s escalating. Others include: “Really?,” “And so . . . ,” “Tell me more,” “Then what happened?,” and “What else can you tell me?”

The key is how you use them: not to argue, defend, or make excuses, but to say: “You’re important. Your problem is important. And I’m listening.”

Don’t get defensive; go deeper.