Hey, welcome back to practicing human. This is the podcast where every day we're practicing

getting a little better at life. I'm your host, Corey Miscara, and in today's episode,

I'm going to share a tip for how you can become a better listener. More to come on that in a moment,

but first, let's settle in with our lovely bells.

I'll ring them, you listen, and let the sound att how to be a better listener.

As you can imagine, this is a very big topic and we could do, well,

a whole year's worth of podcast episodes just looking at that. But I want to give you one tip

that I think you can apply immediately into your next conversation that will deepen the quality of the conversation,

make you feel more connected to the person, and make the other person feel like you're truly

listening to them. And this tip is to listen to understand rather than listening to respond.

Now, I can't take credit for this. I don't know who originally said it. I've had trouble tracking it down, but I can take credit for spreading

this far and wide. I love this idea. I share it in all of my presentations. If you read my book, you probably saw it in my book.

And the reason I think it's so brilliant is because it's so easy to implement. It doesn't require

doing an extended meditation practice. It doesn't require doing an extended communication practice.

Just in the next conversation you have, all you're going to do is practice shifting your

mindset.

So if you're like me or like many people, it's very easy to be in a conversation and

already be rehearsing what you're going to say next. Somebody is sharing a story.

It triggers something that you want to share in response. And then for the second half of that

story, you're already thinking about the story you're going to share and not actually fully there

with that person. And some of this is okay. I mean, any like really strong rapport conversation or when two

people are like highly energized with each other, there's usually a quick going back and forth

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