How To Listen and Your Brain
5 min read
You know all too well how hard it is to only listen to other people.
I put together this free guide to share much of what I have learned and what neuropsychology shows us is happening when you listen.
This guide breaks down what you need to focus on to be a great listener which is essential for solopreneurs or any profession or caring partner.
You will also learn what is happening inside your brain while listening and why.
If you want updates, simply subscribe to my newsletter.
Part 1: The basics of listening
Part 2: The listening technique
Part 3: Your bran while listening
Part 4: Mind wondering
I hope you find this helpful.
Don't overcomplicate listening
Most people think about what to reply while listening which is always doomed to fail.
That sends a clear signal from your body language that you are not paying attention and body language is 90% of human communication.
These are a few ways to tell:
Your eyes are not focused on the individual
Your facial mimicry is not following the talker
Your body language shows protection or avoidance
You look uncomfortable
In reality, listening is much simpler than people think.
Here's how step by step:
1: The basics of listening
Listening is the core function of strengthening any relationship.
Great solopreneurs, leaders, partners, coaches, and therapists know this technique.
Those who fail at it lose revenue.
Listening conveys the important fact that you are putting the talker on center stage and you make them feel important and understood.
Listening instills:
Trust
Respect
A sharing environment
But most of all it makes the talker more inclined to listen to you through reciprocity.
Your mental model is not correct
There are two types of people on this earth.
The ones who believe their conscious mental model in the left hemisphere is true and correct.
Then there are those who know that their conscious mental model in their left hemisphere is almost always incorrect and extremely limited. They are open-minded and high in openness to exploration in their personality.
They are:
Curious
Mentally flexible
Open-minded
Artistic
Conceptual thinkers
Accept differences
See things on a spectrum
If you are one of those not aware that your mental model is not a complete picture of the world: that you do not have all the information about everything.
Then I am truly sorry but you will never be a great listener and I will tell you why in the last section.
But if you are one of those rare people who know you are mostly wrong about things.
Then you have the mental acuity to become a great listener.
2. The listening technique
Many do not understand that their body language is 90% of human communication.
If I were to tell you that if you stand at a 90-degree angle to another person's face and make an angry face while they stare forward.
The individual you're making the angry face towards will pick up that emotion extremely quickly without looking at you.
You pick up any facial expression much quicker at a 90-degree angle than if the person stands in front of you making the same angry face.
It is a biological survival mechanism in all of us.
It is a feedback loop that makes you aware of things that are dangerous around you that you need to act on to survive.
Body language
If you are a man listening to another man standing.
You can not stand parallel to another man because that signals hostility and aggression.
Instead, you need to stand at a 45-degree angle.
This is also why men get agitated when women stand parallel to them while arguing with them.
It is a hostile and dangerous body language to any man.
For men, it is always better to have something in between them like a table or sit down in chairs while listening.
Never cross your arms or legs since it indicates you're uncomfortable listening.
The reason why Dr. Jordan B. Peterson crosses his arms while interviewing is precisely because he is high in neuroticism according to himself.
Now he's a cognitive therapist but you can also hear that he does not listen well sometimes when he interrupts.
Try and have a neutral friendly face while listening because when you're thinking about what the person is saying you're trying to understand their perspective with your right hemisphere running on glucose.
It is not effortless for you so you show that as a strained face.
That is mostly communicated as angry or irritated by the one speaking.
Female body language is different because the average level of neuroticism in women is higher than in men.
That means that women protect themselves with crossed legs more than men.
Crossed arms still communicate closed-up, disagreeing, or closed thinking.
Facial expressions are the same for women and men.
Women can stand or sit parallel to each other without hostility because female aggression is indirect and not physical.
Example:
“I’m really worried about Sara because she’s drinking a lot and sleeping with a lot of guys. We need to help her…”
Also known as cancel culture.
Listening to others
The biggest mistake I see people make when listening is trying to actively compare what is said with their mental model.
Big mistake.
You are there to listen. Not compare.
Comparing is judging and 100% failing to listen.
Listening is not so much about listening as it’s about letting the other person work through their thoughts.
Listening is about virtually holding the other person's hand as they are vulnerable and working through their mental model.
The thing with listening is to let them work it out themselves.
You are only there to support them.
This does not apply well to negotiations. But if you are a great listener you can use questions to your advantage in negotiations as well.
Your goal with listening is to summarize what the other person has told you and how they feel about it.
If you can do that then you can pat yourself on the back because that is what listening is all about.
If the other person does not continue to talk and feel relaxed and understood: you can then proceed with thinking about a reply.
3: Your bran while listening
The audio travels from the other person through your left ear.
From there it goes into your subconscious authentic and truthful right hemisphere.
In the right hemisphere, the audio is processed by your IQ(g) to find patterns.
Your Gestalt functions will look for how the audio implicitly sticks together.
Your mirror neurons will mimic the audio level in you which will force your body to feel what the speaking person is feeling, known as true empathy.
In some cases, it reaches the love center of the right hemisphere to enforce the relationship with the speaker.
In many cases, people in the audience feel positive emotions towards the speaker on the stage as many of you know. It is also one way people love their partners.
That is why women love extroverted men.
Your right hemisphere only works when you are relaxed.
While you relax and listen, your brain produces a signal substance called glutamate to excite the right hemisphere regions.
At the same time, it produces the substance GABA in the left hemisphere sedating it.
If this does not happen: you become a mentally ill person also known as a Schizophrenic followed by paranoia.
Being a good listener is all about being relaxed in your own skin.
If you start comparing what the person is saying with your mental model.
You will start to focus and tense up.
When you focus, the left hemisphere takes over and has difficulty letting go.
Same as when you’re angry.
If the left is excited the right is sedated.
All functions related to making sense of what the person is saying are turned off making you the worst listener in the world.
Defeating the purpose of listening.
4: Daydreaming or mind wandering
A great rule of thumb to understand about humans is that daydreaming is a real thing that happens to all humans every 7 minutes.
It's perfectly normal and looks to be a built-in survival mechanism to break any focus to save energy or glucose to survive.
If you did not have this function you would not be able to get bored so you could go and eat, sleep, drink, and do all other human life essential things you take for granted.
All humans lose the ability to listen and focus for more than 7 minutes without their mind starting to wander to other things.
Remember that it is a healthy sign.
You can use this to your advantage when speaking on stage or to make others pay attention to important things.
Expect listeners not to listen for more than 7 minutes and that they will start doing distracting things.
If they are dead still and silent in their seats: it means you are a captivating speaker.
Remember to focus on:
Build relationships by listening
Your conscious mental model is incorrect
Body language is 90% of all communication
Listening is about relaxing
Listening is not comparing
Listening is about guiding the talker
Daydreaming is a feedback loop to stay alive