Just Listen Quotes

“One absolutely crucial element in moving your brain from panic to logic is to put words to what you’re feeling at each stage.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“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, AUTHOR, WHO’S GOT YOUR BACK”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“So when you encounter problem people, realize that there’s a reason they’re behaving the way they do. It may be a new problem: a health scare, money problems, or job pressures. It may be a long-term problem: anxiety about not being good enough for a job, anger at not being respected, fear that you don’t find them attractive or intelligent. And, yes: It may be that they’re actually just jerks (but they’re usually not). Open your own mind and look for the reasons behind the behavior, and you’ll take the first step toward breaking down barriers and communicating with an “impossible” person.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Perpetually needy people suck the life out of you, because no matter what you do for them, it’s never enough.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Perceiving is believing. Misperceiving is deceiving— And worse yet, prevents achieving.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“I need to talk to you about something. I was so busy feeling upset with you and then acting impatient and irritated that I stepped on your toes instead of walking in your shoes. When I stopped to do that, I thought if I were you, I’d feel frustrated (scared, angry, etc.). Is that true?”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“These elements of the Side-by-Side approach—asking questions during a shared moment, and then deepening the conversation with more questions—are as powerful as communication gets: so powerful that they form the core of the Socratic Method. Socrates never told anybody anything; he just walked around town with people asking them questions until they figured out the answers themselves, and in the process he helped create Western civilization.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“These people work hard and do their best, and they want the world to acknowledge that they’re intelligent, valuable, and creative.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Inside every person is a real person. Who is just as afraid or nervous or in need of empathy as anyone else. Make a person feel felt.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“If you want to have an interesting dinner conversation, be interested. If you want to have interesting things to write, be interested. If you want to meet interesting people, be interested in the people you meet—their lives, their history, their story. Where are they from? How did they get here? What have they learned? By practicing the art of being interested, the majority of people can become fascinating teachers; nearly everyone has an interesting story to tell.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Making someone “feel felt” simply means putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. When you succeed, you can change the dynamics of a relationship in a heartbeat. At that instant, instead of trying to get the better of each other, you “get” each other and that breakthrough can lead to cooperation, collaboration, and effective communication.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“While the simple act of naming the emotions you feel at each stage in a crisis is part of the solution, it’s just the first step.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Understanding a person’s hunger and responding to it is one of the most potent tools you’ll ever discover for getting through to anyone you meet in business or your personal life.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Next time you have a quiet moment, ask yourself this question: “What’s holding you back from accomplishing your goals, and how frustrating is that for you?”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“If someone can’t or won’t listen to you, get him to listen to himself.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“So the first thing you need to do is to break down the thick walls between these silos. To do that, build on the things all silos have in common: the sky above (a shared vision) and the ground below (shared values).”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Questioning works better than telling. That’s why Will didn’t tell Evan, “Don’t let your friends get you into trouble.” Instead, he asked questions that made Evan think, “Who’s likely to get into trouble, and what should I do if it happens?” In other words, Will didn’t talk down to Evan, or talk at him. Instead, the two talked side by side emotionally as well as physically.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Sitting people down and lecturing them rarely works, because it makes them defensive—and when they’re defensive, they hide things from you. Work side by side with them in a cooperative activity, however, and you’ll lower their guard and get them to open up. That’s why hostage negotiators try to get hostage takers to commit to a shared activity, such as allowing food or medical supplies into a building. It’s also why the elders at an Amish barn-raising or quilting bee uncover more deep secrets than a spy in bed with a drunken politician.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“anger and empathy—like matter and antimatter—can’t exist in the same place at the same time. Let one in, and you have to let the other one go. So when you shift a blamer into empathy, you stop the person’s angry ranting dead in its tracks.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Empathy is a sensory experience; that is, it activates the sensory part of your nervous system, including the mirror neurons we’ve talked about. Anger, on the other hand, is a motor action—usually a reaction to some perceived hurt or injury by another person. 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.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“In this situation, your success hinges entirely on talking the person up from reptile to mammal to human brain”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“You’re in trouble if you’re trying to gain buy-in from someone who’s feeling angry, defiant, upset, or threatened because, in these situations, the person’s higher brain isn’t calling the shots. If you’re talking to a boss, a customer, a spouse, or a child whose lower brain or midbrain is in control, you’re talking to a cornered snake or, at best, a hysterical rabbit.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Something I know about seemingly confident people, and especially people who work in large companies, is that often they’re more afraid of making a mistake than they are of wanting to do something right.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Just like married couples, companies can fall into the dissonance trap if they think they’re sending employees one message but those employees hear something very different. CEOs who think their firms are great places to work often are stunned when I tell them their staffs find these companies stifling, unrewarding, unfriendly, or just plain awful. This is a bad situation because it’s an open loop: There’s no feedback to correct the dissonance, so it grows worse over time. The CEO typically grows bitter, decides that “these people are underproductive whiners,” and implements punitive changes that make matters worse. The employees, in turn, grow even more annoyed or angry. Left uncorrected, this can lead to the worst-case scenario of a CEO giving people the least possible incentive to keep them working and those people doing the least they can to just hold onto their jobs, a situation that can bring a company to its knees.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. I don’t gratuitously recommend books”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Earlier”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Stress isn’t bad. It causes us to focus”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“Usable Insight Everyone competes for time”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

“The measure of self-assurance is how deeply and sincerely interested you are in others; the measure of insecurity is how much you try to impress them with you.”
― Mark Goulston, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone