psychologists call it theory of mind, a child at a very early age
two years old even younger sometimes has the unique ability among animals of imagining
what the other person is thinking and we take that for granted because we use it all the time
but no other animal that we know except perhaps dolphins and chimpanzees to some degree have that
ability it's incredibly powerful the ability to put yourself in the shoes the body the head
of another person now children as they get older feel social pressure to kind of fit into a group
and they become more self-absorbed as we all do as we get older and less outer directed so
when you're two or three years old you're very attuned to your mother your father and their
emotions and their moods but then as you get older you become less observant you become more
self-absorbed so you need to turn that around and you need to understand that social skill
is a matter of a sensitivity to the psychologies to the moods to the experiences of other people
and you're not paying attention you need to be aware of that okay you need to be aware that most
of the time when you look at your spouse when you look at your children or your boss you're
projecting your own emotions your own phobias your own childhood problems onto them you're
seeing reflections of your own emotional hang-ups so you're not really looking at people you're not
really observing them you don't really understand their experience and what makes them different
while they're talking and blabbing on about their problems and their day we're in our
head and we're thinking about our own problems our own issues our own ideas that we want to tell them
because we find that more interesting than what they have to say the reason we don't
listen to other people is we find ourselves more interesting than what the other person has to say
you're never going to become a good listener if you're trapped in that kind of paradigm
you need to flip it around and start thinking that other people are actually fascinating
so for instance you've been married to this woman or man for 10 years tell yourself that
you don't really know them begin with that premise your goal is to find out something new that you
never understood or saw in them before to start paying attention to their non-verbal communication
it's the fine level of your attention how you're attuned to the look in their eye to the tone in
their voice to when they get excited by certain subjects get them to talk about their childhood
everybody loves to talk about their childhood and about special moments that happen and notice
any kind of excitement in the eyes or something that makes them very emotional either good or bad
and start paying attention to these things that you never noticed before if you can just do that
once a day with whoever it is you'll start to see that it's actually very powerful
you'll have less drama you'll have less arguments you'll have less conflict in life
improvement pill here i want to piggyback off of what robert green is saying and give you
an additional tip a visualization exercise that will help you listen better i want you to imagine
that there is a person watching a movie now most of the time your consciousness is this person
and it is focused on your movie when interacting with others you are essentially being invited into
their movie theater to watch their movie but what most of us do is we bring our phones in with us
pull it out underneath the seat and secretly watch our movie at the same time you might
think the other person doesn't notice but they do it's pretty obvious the key to becoming a better
listener is to learn how to put down the phone and become fully immersed as if you are watching
a jaw-dropping grammy award-winning movie at an actual theater if you can get yourself into this
mindset you will naturally find yourself asking the right questions as you are now genuinely
curious about the development of their character if you do this you will stand out because if you
think about it how many people do you speak with on a regular basis that watch your movie with a
hundred percent of their focus like when you talk to them you can tell that they really really care
about what you're gonna say next usually the only people who do this are your family best friends
and loved ones so it's actually very rare which means if you listen to people like you're watching
a movie you will become extremely memorable people will want to come back and interact with you again
because they know that when they do they will feel as if they matter they will feel as if their movie
is actually worth watching if you want to watch the entire robert green interview where he goes
over a lot more about addiction his life story and self-improvement in general i'd suggest you head
on over to my friend brian j roberts channel by clicking on the link in the description box below
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