The Art Of Communication

Hello members and subscribers! It’s time for our sixth Moonshots Master episode, and here we are breaking down the number one business skill: the ART OF COMMUNICATION.

To inspire us on the importance of communicating well, we hear from Sharon Ellison who helps us identify if we are being defensive in our communication. We then delve into a Moonshots-favourite as Cal Newport breaks down the limitations of email and electronic communication. Sir Alex Ferguson then communicates the importance of saying ‘well done’ and positive communication to teams, rounding out how we utilise encouragement.

Helping us comprehensively understand the power of communication, we hear from William Ury who’s passion for good listening enabled him to work with the President of Venezuela. Cal Newport then breaks down the overwhelming effect of smartphones complicating communication and what he means by the ‘hyperactive hive mind’. Lastly, Julian Treasure gives us 5 practises to listen better.

To help us develop daily habits that cultivate good communication, we have practical tips from 3 thought-leaders. First, we hear world champion public speaker Dananjaya Hettiarachchi’s 4 essential body language tips. Simon Sinek encourages us to manage effective confrontation using the ‘FBI’ framework (Feelings, Behaviour, Impact). Finally, Julian Treasure provides us with 5 simple exercises to do every day that can encourage conscious listening.

TRANSCRIPT

Hi everyone. It's Mike here again, and it is great to share with you a preview of our latest moonshots master series. This series is where we collect all the wisdom that we've learned from over 140 plus shows. And what we do is we study a particular topic and we bring all the best clips and practices together.

So you get your own little master class and what you'll get in each of the moonshots master series is a show dedicated to your personal transformation or perhaps to. Problem-solving decision-making thinking better or that kind of good stuff. Or lastly, it will be about leadership. Those are the three big buckets that all the moonshots thinking fits into personal transformation, thinking better, and leadership that's right.

And we pick all of those great clips from superstars entrepreneurs and authors and wrap it all up together. Now you're [00:01:00] only getting a preview of this. If you'd like to listen to the full show, get all the tools and all the goodies that come with the moonshots master series. Visit moonshots.io, click on the member’s area and sign up, be our patron.

It's only a dollar a week and you get a complete master class just for you every single month. So head over to the dementia study and become a member. But for now, He enjoyed the show.

Hello and welcome to the moonshots master series. It's episode six. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the man with the plan, Mr. Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, mark. Hey, good morning, Mike. What an exciting day for you and me and all of our members and subscribers to get into a brand new episode of the master series.

What a perfect day. It is a perfect day and it is so good to do this for our members and subscribers only. And boy, are [00:02:00] they going to get what I would have to call the real deal today? The real masterclass, the essential wouldn't you. Yeah, that's right. Today is a comprehensive, deep dive into the art of communication, which Mike, I mean our members and subscribers, they're going to be pretty happy because the next 90 minutes are full of you.

And I break down the importance, the frustrations, as well as tips and tricks on how to be the best communicators out there. And how important is that nowadays and all of the work that you and I, and all of our listeners in the working world do nowadays, how important is communicating. And particularly because it's in so many different channels, isn't it?

 Is it text? Is it email? Is it in a document? It was on a conference call. Was it heaven forbid we're in the same room together? Like communication is all of the essences. How much do we talk about, have we communicated that [00:03:00] do, does that partner, does that client, does that person understand do they get it?

Are they on board another way of saying it is, are they aligned? Are they like it, do they really understand? It's like a constant theme every single day at work, right? It's a constant theme that not only can create a lot of confidence in what you're doing. It'll lead to better projects that lead to more alignment.

But I think in the times, Mike, and we'll talk about this lots today as well in the times in my career where. Projects have gone a little bit maybe sideways or haven't moved at a quick enough pace. The reason for that more often than not is because of misalignment, it's because of the lack of good communication that's then led to maybe one or more parties going down different paths.

And then what happens is you don't realize it until it's too late, that you're already maybe two or three [00:04:00] turns away from one another. And then you've got to figure out how to get back. And all of that could have been avoided by just having that better communication right at the start. Totally.

 And listen, communicatings hard because we get so much information, so many notifications, so many messages every single day that we're all running ad blockers. Think about this mark the recent iPhone launch from apple that I guess what. We've got this like super powered do not disturb mode now.

Isn't it funny that's one of their key features of their product that it's going to block out? All the things it's enabling? Yeah. The irony is dripping here, but the reality is our attention is sought after by much technology, so many different media touch points that we are we're [00:05:00] in a fight to put our attention and energy into the right place.

And we're in a fight to make sure that we communicate clearly to those around us. So we have got an action packed show. We've got the greatest football and soccer manager in history talking about communication. We've got stories about presidents and communication. We have one of our moonshots favorites.

We've got Cal Newport ahead in the show and we even have one of our real-time heavyweights, Mr. Simon Sinek so much in front of us, mark to dive into a complete masterclass in the world of communications. Where do you want to start? As our existing members and subscribers will recognize, we like to break these comprehensive deep dives down into a number of different parts.

And this first part that we like to spend some time on is really helping inspire all of us to understand the importance as well as the art of [00:06:00] communication. Mike, I think where we should start is exactly that let's build up a foundation and let's get ourselves inspired around the idea of communicating correctly.

Now, this first clip we've got is from Sharon Ellison and Sharon Ellison does a great breakdown on how you and I and our members and subscribers can identify. Sometimes we're being a little bit defensive because I think as we're going to hear from the clip, there are a number of pens. Break down and go into when we're being that little bit defensive in our communication.

So let's hear from Sharon Ellison about the six patterns of defensive communication. It's interesting for people to begin to identify when they're when they are defensive often after taking one, one cl an initial class on non-defensive communication, people will say, wow, I'm even more defensive than I ever knew.

Our defenses fall into three categories. I think just like in war where we can [00:07:00] surrender, we can withdraw or we can counter attack. And when we surrender there's, but I think there's a passive and an aggressive way to do it. So when I say, when we surrender, if we do it passively, it's like the codependent person.

So if you find yourself always justifying what? My tired is my child is crying because, or fussing because he's tired or my partner or my spouse spoke to me harshly because she's had a hard day at work. So if we're constantly justifying other people's mistreatment of us or their behavior when it's rude or inconsiderate, then we're probably in that surrender betray.

The other one is surrender sabotage, and there's at least a dozen ways to do that. I might be nice to your face and talk about you behind your back. So I'm acting friendly to you, but I'm sabotaging you. I might make a commitment to do something [00:08:00] and not follow through. So there's a lot of different ways that I might go along with an idea and not criticize it until later, but you had no idea that I had any issues with it.

 That's the surrender sabotage. And then with withdraw, some people really don't like conflict. They can be dynamic people and very active in their communities, but they want to avoid conflict at all costs. So that's the withdrawal escape where I just, I leave the room or I don't bring up the topic at all.

And then there's withdrawn trap and that's this one.

So I'm just sitting there with a very sullen, frozen stare. I can do this in a meeting and it has a huge impact in the room. I call it the energy sucker. Do it at home. And if somebody says, what's the matter I go, I'm fine. And then if they say you don't look fine to me. I go I was just fine to, you started bugging me.

So I withdraw, but then I get mad at you. If you try to engage me. And then the last one is counter [00:09:00] attack. And sometimes I counter attack to justify and explain my own position or to blame you. So if you can begin to get those six patterns in mind, sometimes it's easier first to watch other people and see which one you think they're doing.

 So that's, that would be the, probably the simplest thorough way. I can talk about the different defensive loads. Isn't it funny when you listen to Sharon, Alison, she mentions all of these characteristics and I think my we've all been a bit guilty of the betray, the sabotage, the escape, the entrap, the justifying, the counter, the blaming.

 You can't help, but going, oh, I think I've done. I find it very reassuring because I have been so guilty of some of these when somebody says something, how easy is it for us to interpret in incorrectly? How easy is it for us to feel [00:10:00] hurt or angry, frustrated, and therefore need to protect ourselves and follow one of these six defensive reactions.

That's Sharon Ellison broke down for us. I've certainly gone down a number of those different reactions, Mike, throughout my career, as well as personal life. And it's really reassuring when I hear an individual like Sharon, break it down for us. And it just reminds me of the importance of communication and how subconscious, our reactions can be.

When somebody else has communicated something to us, I think it's really illustrating to me that when a colleague or a partner or a client has said something to me, I'm probably going to fall into one of these six defensive reactions. And the truth is sometimes it's a little bit unconscious. So just to have that awareness.

 Will enable me to be that little bit more efficient with my response. [00:11:00] Yeah. And you just need to know yourself and catch yourself out. To me it's no different from when you sit down at dinner or a lunch or at a cafe, put your phone away just because you don't want that near you, because people will misinterpret.

If you are grabbing your phone, looking at your phone, that you're not interested in them. So remove that temptation. Similarly with this defensive communication of why we thought it was so important to leave with it is that we're often behaving like this. Consciously. And I think that opportunity we have and taking onboard this sort of call out to those six different types of defensive communication, which we'll put in the show notes.

So no problem, you can go and reference those. You can actually listen to those while we're going through the masterclass, just head over to moonshots.io. And you'll find the show notes for this episode. I think it's just [00:12:00] really good little call out, but I'll tell you what's a bigger call-out. Mark is one of our favorites, Cal Newport.

He he did this great great book, a world without email, where he introduces how email took over our world. And it's a crazy story. So let's get into it. Let's have a listen to Cal Newport talking about the history of email, anytime a little bit about when email really came onto the scene and how it's evolved since then it came fast.

I think that's one of the interesting things I uncovered and the way I studied this actually is I went back into the New York times as business section archive and found every article that mentioned the word email in any configuration of the term email. And it changed over time. And so you could see it sporadically appearing as late as the late 1980s, they would put the word email in quotation marks.

It would, that would be a capital E desk mail in quotation marks. [00:13:00] As late as the late 1980s, they were saying things like this technology is around, but it didn't really live up to what we thought the promise would be. You get to the 1990 to 1995, as you mentioned there, it says very rapid. Very rapid increase where suddenly email becomes this huge market.

It becomes a half billion dollar a year market in just a couple years, it gets labeled the clear killer app of the 1990s. It goes from articles in the late 1980s where they're explaining to people what email is to 1995. This is one of the, if not the killer app of the entire decade and one of the most important pieces of software of the entire decade, they said it's spreadsheets.

Email and the nineties. So this is important to understand. It came really fast and when it came, it took over everywhere. And one of the arguments I make is that it came so rapidly that we didn't really have time to step back and say, huh, how should we use this tool? What are the side effects of having this [00:14:00] tool available?

Will this change the way we work? Let's think through what's the right way to integrate this low friction communication to what we're already doing. None of that thinking happened. It just rushed through the business sector, incredibly fast overhauled the way we were working often in ways that no one was really planning often in ways that wasn't intentional, it just took over and transformed all of our lives more or less without our permission.

I love that end clip there. Mike, without our permission, I know a software that took off so rapidly. That we just weren't able to necessarily understand the effects it would have. So specifically my mind, the effects that would have an all communication, obviously it's improved the ability to collaborate.

Undeniably. We can share work with colleagues and partners around the world via email, but I think what's really interesting that cowl does in [00:15:00] that book, a world without email re-imagining work in an age of communication overload is the key word there. Communication overload. Now, nowadays emails, hurled over the fence.

Isn't it. And I think that's true with a lot of digital communication. We are over stimulated by it all. And I think with email, particularly for me, When we got into Cal's book (available on Amazon) previously on the show, actually, I remember saying to you and our listeners email for me it's an addiction. I became totally addicted to checking my emails.

Sometimes the first thing I did in the morning and the last thing I did at night. And it's so interesting, isn't it? Because that's not the way it was designed to be used. It was designed back in the eighties as an easy way of communicating. And obviously it got popular in the nineties, but it was never necessarily designed for somebody like me to be checking [00:16:00] upwards of 12 hours a day.

The problem that we have with email is that it's a delivery system of information. That we never said should be at the beating heart of how we work, but that is in fact what it has become. And the problem is that when it's at the heart of the way you work, it's not just an informative service, but it is your work flow.

Then if you look at it, it's a product that doesn't have a lot of furlough in it. And you certainly as an interface, as an experience, it's actually not a great flow design interface, but for the still its premise of managing your flow is the inbound messages from others rather than you saying what work is most [00:17:00] important to do now or to plan for tomorrow.

So it's totally. The wrong application. That's at the heart of how we work and you know what cow beautifully points out there is. We never sat down and thought about this plan for this. Yet it is become a defacto standard by stealth. It just corrected it. And now the idea of working without email sounds just like ridiculous.

Doesn't it mind? Yeah. It sounds like an ideal world that is impossible to achieve. I quite like what you just said there, even though we have now become, there's now a need to be in a higher sense of efficiency with the speed of projects nowadays and communication. The flow needs to be more efficient and focused, but email cannot keep up.

With what we need. We no longer, even though we're still relying on it so much and we still use it [00:18:00] significantly, it can't deliver on the promise that we'll need it to do because we need a communication. That's more efficient. That's more personal, that's more direct. Yet. Email is still very well. It's just simple texted you, it, that has no kind of emotion or intention behind it.

And I think I'm guilty of it as well. Mike, the way I have used email in the past is very poor as well. I would, and we'll dig into understanding and adoption later on in today's show, of course, but my usage of email, historically, I have been guilty of sending an email and assuming that the other person on the end of the.

Of the thread will understand what it is. I'm trying to say, I won't be on the phone. I'll just assume that they get it. And again, that is a behavior that I've picked up through the usage of over 12, 15 years of using email in a day job.[00:19:00] That's it that what you pointed to is the illusion that you just communicated, but you haven't really like how many times do you have to follow up and either via email or other channels, did you read my email?

Do you understand? Are you ready to now act in alignment with that information that shows you if you sent a really important email, have you ever liked texted to say, Hey, can you make sure you check that email? No, because you, again, you heard it over the fence and you assume that everybody's online checking their emails.

The truth is I can certainly follow it up to make sure that the other person understands it more, but sometimes So there you are. We find ourselves in the modern age, mark, where we are letting email run a muck with our [00:20:00] communication. We're on the illusion that we have communicated or done our work.

We've hit the ball over the net and said, you're shot now job done. But this is far from the optimal set up for communication. And look, we never planned for an email to be in the driving seat, but it is full front and center. So this is laying some really big context for us.

And this will really allow us to create some habits, practices, and approaches that will help us communicate better. But before we do that, I think we really need now to go to somebody who has on the achievement level, been somewhat of an outperformer. His name is sir Alex Ferguson for 27 years. He was the manager of Manchester United, and he has won more trophies, more accolades than at any other football or [00:21:00] soccer coach in the world.

For those of you tuning in from America, think of this as the bill Belicheck of English soccer. So Alex Ferguson is a true great. Now what's really fascinating is he has a lot just so much experience and we are going to tune into a conversation he's having, and it's really reflecting on what was the most.

Important thing that he learned in his career and you are going to be absolutely blown away when you hear what this greatest ever soccer manager has to say. So let's listen now to sir, Alex Ferguson communication. We get players with this staff has always been an essential element of the job that you've done.

And you say that the two most powerful words that you can ever use a Weldon, how liberally did you throw those around? Did you save them for special training? And I know tank never. Chris has us in a training cause I know it was as support the view of seeing [00:22:00] real done in Collegium, in a training session with saying, well done that on the recognition and communication.

This is a valuable lesson for anyone. However, when a students asked me that question, what would you like to have? No, one's telling you years ago that and I was definitely communicating. But as a young manager, that's a month, two years of age, I went to the world, I was buying glass seat, solvent pies programs.

And what happens is that your neglect to gain consent is the manager that the chairman and we never spoke and no matter what you think of your chief executive of your chairman, you have got to find a way of communicating with them. The other aspect of communication is recognition of style.

Recognizing that people we want for you always saying can one get to know them all. And then you think, and the Cottington

the goals and achieve [00:23:00] them and the cafe and the administration all pocket. For instance, you think about it, a couple of ghettos in the good way to come in at 16 one was muddy, but kidding there, you see them going up always recognize them was really important because you build a full Rangi and when things are going wrong that everyone at kind to him is behind me.

 That is a great support from a fantastic, I miss that. I must have missed that. I went in one day and Kathy and Denise, and wondering once to see him, I says, what's your one? He said, oh, so he was alone. She says where's myth and money.

the essence of that message was there was no way she would speak to me that way, unless there was a communication between us that was important message.[00:24:00] What a great demonstration, Mike, of somebody who has these enormous accolades that we would hold up as one of the greatest managers in football, soccer history, but how relatable, how respected, how approachable was he out of work and that he cultivated this through just through the inverted commerce, simple fact and manner of communicating to his staff.

Yes. And the The thing that I want to point out here is the world's greatest soccer and football coach. When asked the question, what do you know now that you wish you'd known at the beginning of your career? He doesn't say oh, I wish I'd learned more tactics. He doesn't say, ah, I wish I'd learned how to run a football club from a business perspective better.

He doesn't say, ah, I wish I could have recruited better players. I wish I knew how to do that better. [00:25:00] He chooses communication as the fundamental thing that he discovered was essential to their success that he didn't know at the beginning, I find this remarkable that what he talks about communication has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the craft.

Drawing up a great S soccer site, working out a game plan, working out like ways to do free kicks and penalties. Nope. Nope. He fundamentally says the biggest thing I wish I had known at the beginning of my career was the importance of communication. Does that not just make the case for this master shot these master series for us to go deep into this because it's like if he says he wished you'd known, then I think we can all learn a little bit [00:26:00] more about communication.

 I totally agree. And whether you're a manager on the soccer pitch or whether you're commanding a team in the boardroom, I think that communication Mike is so undervalued. Isn't it? There was a great statistic Mike that we found previously from gala with 46% of employees. Going to a meeting and leaving that meeting, not actually knowing what they're supposed to do next.

I know that's the illusion of communication that we all have. It, we all thought we communicated in the meeting, but actually pretty much half the people live, even guy. I've got no idea what I'm in today. And hearing from Alex Ferguson referencing when he was a 32 year old manager, and the one thing that he wished he knew how to do better was format himself and be able to have better communication and lines of conversation with individuals.

 That, for me, really sparks to that statistic there leaving[00:27:00] an individual or a conversation with both parties, knowing what it is that they're meant to go and do next is surprisingly undervalued. Yeah. And the crazy thing here is there was a recent report from from Bloomberg.

It's called their recruiter report and. The most wanted, hardest to find to skills in the modern workplace was strategic thinking and communication skills. I believe by the way, those are very interlinked because I think if you can communicate well, you understand the data and the facts upon which you can draw insights and you can make some recommendations to go forward, but communication skills, number one in this report hardest to find most wanted.

And yet his here's an interesting thing. When you look at that [00:28:00] motivation drive global mindset and wait for this industry related work experience, all of those. Way down the table, way down the list. What Bloomberg said is when they actually studied what businesses are looking for in individuals and skills, communication, numero UNO, mark.

Crazy. Look I feel as though we've made the case, Mike Kevin way about the importance of cultivating and practicing the art of communication. I'm hearing from all of these individuals, Sharon Ellison, Cal Newport, as well as sir, Alex Ferguson, the importance of communication as they reflect back on their careers.

 This is so important for you. And we've referenced communication both in our careers and our working history, as [00:29:00] well as on the moonshot show, it really does feel to me like the most important thing. I've probably learnt over my. Over my years trying to cultivate a better way of creating alignment across teams.

It's so key. Totally true. And I tell you who we really hope that we are developing the communication skills of is that of our members, that, of our subscribers and those of you listening right now. We want to take this moment to say thank you so much for your support of the show. Your support, your monthly contribution helps us pay for all of the production of this.

And the podcast we are so grateful that you support us. We're so grateful for the thoughts that you send us the outreach. So mark, with no further ado, let's cue the drums. Let's get the trumpets going. Let's do a shout out to all of our [00:30:00] members. A huge, thank you. I just really wanted to also pass on my, thanks to the members and subscribers as well.

And here's a quick roll call for all of you guys done that at our welcome Bob Nils, John and Terry Brighty and Niles, Sandy marshaling, Ken DMR, Tom Byron, mark, and Halena young ever. Marjon Connor, Rodrigo, Yasmeen, and spaceman, man, joining us from space. Thank you everybody for being part of the moonshots family, your contribution, as Mike's just said, it is so appreciated and it really does help keep us going.

Doesn't it, Mike, it helps keep the wheels turning and enables you and I to learn out loud. It really does. And we want to invite you into the conversation. So tell us, what are you going to start working on your art of [00:31:00] communication? We're going to hit you up with some deeper understanding now of communication, how it works, some of the challenges we face, but we're also going to give you tips, tricks, habits, ways to communicate better.

So tell us, what are you going to try and work on? What are you going to improve in your communication? So to set the scene, we are now going to UN unveil what I think might be one of the most powerful ideas in communication, and that is the power of listening. So we're going to listen to William brewery and he's going to tell this wonderful story that really highlights to us, the power of listening, ancient and well-known philosophical, riddle that asks if a tree.

Falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it. Does it still make a sound scientific view? [00:32:00] Is that why tree will make waves in the air to make a sound? It takes an ear to hear it. So my question is if a person speaks, if they offer a Ted talk for example, and no one listens is that really communication listening, I believe is the missing half of communication, absolutely necessary, but often overlooked.

We live in an age. We call the age of communication and certainly with a lot of cell phones and texts and tweets and emails, there's a lot of talking going on, but how much listening can there really be with so much interruption and distraction? So my passion for the last 30 years has been helping people get to yes, in very tough negotiations from [00:33:00] family feuds to boardroom battles from labor strikes to civil wars.

And I hear a lot of talking, but I don't hear a lot of real listening. We think of negotiation as being about talking. But in fact, it's really about listening. If you study the behavior of successful negotiators, you find that they listen far more than they talk after all were given two years in one mouth for a reason to listen twice as much, at least as we speak.

So why listen, why is it so important to listen? Let me tell you a story. Some years ago, I was in the country of Venezuela serving as a third party between the government and the political opposite. At a time of intense conflict with a lot of people fearing a civil war. My colleague Francisco Diaz, and I had an appointment with the president who goes Chavez at 9:00 PM at the presidential palace.

Finally, at midnight, we were [00:34:00] ushered in to see the president who had his entire cabinet arrayed behind him. And he asked me, so URI, what do you think of the situation going on here? And I said, Mr. President, I've been talking to your ministers here and to the opposition, and I think you're making some progress.

What do you mean progress? He shouted you're blind. You're not seeing all the dirty tricks those traders are up to. And he leaned in very close to my face and proceeded to show. What was I going to do? Part of me felt like defending myself naturally, but what good would it do for me to get into an argument with the president of Venezuela?

How would that advance feasts? So I just listened. I gave him my full attention. I listened to where he was coming from. And president Chavez was known he was famous for making eight hour speeches, but after 30 minutes of me just [00:35:00] nodding and listening, I saw his shoulder slowly sag. And he said to me, in a very weary tone of voice, so Ury, what should I do?

That's the sound of a human mind opening, opening to listen. So I said, Mr. President, it's almost Christmas. The country needs a break. Last year, all the festivities were canceled because of the conflict. Why not propose a truce this time so that people can enjoy the holidays with their families. And after that everybody will maybe be in a better mood to listen.

He said, that's a great idea. I'm going to announce that in my next speech, His mood had completely shifted how through the simple power of listening, the simple power of listening, Mike, again, a scale or a behavior and practice that we often overlook. Don't we often [00:36:00] forget about when we're trying to communicate our points.

We'll negotiate a tricky contract or project. We'll just keep on talking rather than give the other party and ability to listen and question. I know it's funny. Like the way I relate to that is when I really focus on my listening, what's interesting. The benefit of that very quickly, the path, the resolution, the solution appears to me.

 As a rather talkative chap, I do really work on shut the hell up Mike and just listening because I can be very tempted to bang on for way too long. And certainly it's something that over the course of my career, I am so deliberate and very attuned to shut the [00:37:00] hell up and really actively listen.

And what you saw, there was just a great story of all people, the president of Venezuela, once he was heard. He was then ready to listen to opportunities, to solutions and possibilities. And for me, that's a huge part of listening is it's an act of respect. It's an act of humility on your part towards the talker that you're prepared to listen.

So underrated, isn't it mark. Yeah. And it's really a, an underrated element of the art of communication. Isn't it? Because naturally when you think of communication, I'm going to learn how to vocally project myself, how to think broadcast. I'm going to broadcast. Yeah. Yeah. And what I love about William Murray and his book getting to yes.

Negotiating an [00:38:00] agreement without giving in and for members and subscribers, obviously we'll have. Reading list available in the show notes. So that story, I think, is a great demonstration of the fact that to communicate your point, sometimes it just helps to listen to open up those ears and to take a quite see back, which I think as we think about the art of communication, as we learn to try and understand how to maximize our ability to communicate points, I think this is really interesting to me to learn that listening is something that is an equal part, maybe even more so of importance when it comes to communicating and therefore collaborating with other people more efficient.

Yeah. Why do you think listening is hard for so many of us. Why do you think we can be tempted just to, to speak before listening? Why [00:39:00] do we do that? Do you think I have a feeling that it's down to the way that we are educated when we were kids we are encouraged to stand up in front of the class and argue, not argue in a, an aggressive, confrontational sort of way, but we need to convince the class and the teacher that we're right.

Don't we need to show them that we understand something. We need to maybe communicate that our understanding of a historical event or mathematical problem, whatever it might be, choose your topic is correct. And we need to demonstrate the way that we understand it. So we're communicating verbally that we get the point.

I don't think. That for me, apart from maybe when you are learning when you're learning another language, Mike and your teacher encourages you to just listen to the words, make sure to understand them. I think that's probably the closest that I came to really being taught [00:40:00] how to properly listen efficiently.

I think the rest of the time, I was only really taught how to verbally communicate to talk out loud to, like you say, broadcast to other people. What do you think do you think that's aligned with your expectation and experience? Yeah, I think I'm really just, I'm going to bring us back to build on what you were saying and to bring us back to.

Like when we're in the moment and where attempted not to listen, I actually feel like egos playing a big role that were often being triggered into like fighting or being in flight. And I think that if you develop a capability of avoiding that sort of quick reaction to [00:41:00] strike back and to create a win in the conversation, but rather to be objective, listen, to understand I think that's part of what you need to do, but you need to be self-aware that you may be your sort of subconscious response would be to fight.

Or not to listen and just try and make your point. I think a big part of the listening helps you take in all of the nonverbal clues the context around which the story is being delivered. So you can start to pick up on body language, and we're going to talk a lot about body language later in the show, but I think there's a chance to get the deeper meaning to what's being communicated to you.

Maybe even some of the motivations and the state of the person that's delivering it. To me, great [00:42:00] communication is when you can truly get on their wavelength, because I feel like if someone's describing a problem that needs to be solved or whether they have a problem with. Whatever it is. If you can objectively just hear them out, be like a vacuum cleaner, take it all in and suspend judgment.

I think that's a key thing, right? Just be objective, hear the facts, observe the body language, and then don't try and find the answer until you've really understood. I think another temptation we have is to quickly like what about this? And you're like throwing solutions at the problem. The person's told me I'm like, what about this?

A, B, C, D, maybe you just have to really slow down, really listen, take it all in. And if a path is not certainly for me, if a path is not appearing [00:43:00] in my mind, I just continued to question. And what I try to do is just run through lots of questions, which will help me understand. And I have absolute faith that at some point I'll go, Bing, what about this?

And we'll be like, yeah, that could be a good solution. And I find that when I'm stuck, I've perhaps just not listened enough. What do you think? Yeah. And I think you're, I think you're really hitting quite a consistent theme with the collaboration episode. So in, in episode number three, Mike, you'll remember the, we dug into teamwork, collaboration, the ability to communicate correctly with teammates.

And I think you're dead. I think the. Temptation that maybe we have is to allow our ego to drive our decision-making or the way that we communicate and make [00:44:00] decisions, but actually you're right. Some of the best work that we've done and that I've done is when I'm collaborating with another individual who might have a different point of view.

So obviously the best way to collaborate together is to have a really efficient and valuable way of communicating. That's the foundation it's built on, isn't it. And I think you're very correct there. I think without the, without having the ability to almost hit the pause button on your ego and allowing it to put it to one side and to not necessarily say I'm always riots.

I know the answer straight away. Having the ability to put that to one side and instead explore a couple of other different directions, maybe with a colleague or partner. I think that really does drive a more efficient and therefore, maybe even better end results. I think you're, I think you're right.

And it's really interesting [00:45:00] taking time to pause, reflect on what the person's saying. This power of listening becomes even more important in a world where things are just like information is just like flowing all around you and interruptions and so forth. So it's the perfect moment to reflect on some additional thinking from Cal Newport.

And he really wants to call out this idea of between email and our phones. We are getting really overwhelmed and this is resulting in something that he calls the hyperactive hive mind by 2000. Yeah. You have people complaining about overload? It did not take very long before. We felt completely overwhelmed by the amount of email that we were answering.

It was in the ma of this newly emergent email overwhelm that we then throw smartphones into the picture. And what this did is it extended the temporal boundaries of this [00:46:00] hyper communicative approach to work so that now you could be a part of all this back and forth before you got to the office, you could be a part of all this back and forth when you home in the evening on the weekends, when you're at your kid's soccer games on vacation.

And so it was a really unfortunate, I think, coming together of technologies because we got this workflow, which I call the hyperactive hive, mind, everyone just works things out on the fly ad hoc communication that emerged metastasized got overwhelmed. And almost immediately after that, we found a way to take that hyperactive hive mind with us everywhere.

We went. That combination, I think has led since in the last 10 to 15 years, in a real sense of exhaustion and unhappiness with a lot of knowledge workers with their relationship, with these tools in their work. Yeah. It's just like now we're creeping into nights and the weekends and there's just, there's no barrier.

Yeah. And here's the key part. I think this is foundational to the optimistic vision. I ultimately give [00:47:00] we, when we think about improving these habits, I think we too often just focus on ourselves and our own personal habits and we think I just need better hacks if I just didn't check email on weekends.

If I batched when I checked my emails, that would be better if I just promulgated clear expectations about response times, that would be better. We put it on ourselves, but one of my big arguments is the reason why we don't gain any traction with these hacks and this tips. And this advice is because what we're not realizing is the underlying workflow by which we are collaborating in most of these teams and organizations is one that depends on unstructured back and forth ad hoc communication.

So as long as this hyperactive high mind workflow is basically the primary way that you collaborate. You can't get away from it. And then when you do try to get away from it, when you say I'm going to do a Tim Ferriss auto responder twice a day, that's all I'm going to check. It doesn't stick because actually you have to check email more because you have two dozen different [00:48:00] ongoing processes, each of which has their own asynchronous conversation going back and forth, and you cannot let those all die for four hours because it's going to slow down other people, everything is going to stop.

And the big sort of foundational message in my optimistic vision is forget the hacks up here. When we're thinking about our relation to the inbox, we have to replace the processes down here. We have to actually replace the hyperactive hive mind with specific alternatives that specify for this type of work.

This is how we communicate about it. Here's how we share information about it. Here's how we coordinate about a, here's, how it works. We have to create these processes that are explicit alternatives to just, Hey, let's just rock and roll an email if we're ever going to escape from our inboxes. And so I call that optimistic.

 It's hard. But it helps us explain why we've had no success. Just trying to at the upper levels, I would see better advice. We need better habits. We need better hacks Merlin, Mann's inbox zero. We can solve this problem. Now we've got to fix the processes. That's harder, but if you do it, you can significantly reduce the pressure of the [00:49:00] inbox and get to the world without email I'm talking about, which is a world, not where email doesn't exist, but where emails like your physical mailbox, maybe once a day, you check it.

There's some stuff in there. It's convenience better than a fax machine, but it's not at the center of how you actually collaborate and get things done. Mike, I think cow does such a good job here of breaking down the challenges. I think we all have. When it comes to email, isn't it interesting how somebody can put it so eloquently frustrations that we've probably all had with communication, sorry, with emails specifically, we're checking it on our vacations and our weekends and our kids' soccer games, because we know that if we don't do it, somebody else can't move on.

It's really interesting to hear it broken down. So simply in a way that then illustrates to me that I'm a product of this behavior. I'm my mind. My hyperactive hive mind is a product or this need to always be online to respond to emails. [00:50:00] So let me, I think you're absolutely right. And when he was talking about late at night on the weekend that's what email does and yeah, I think we're all we can all recognize that behavior.

I think where he is proposing the solution for us is that we are trying to replace, let's say you and I and teammates get in a room with a whiteboard and work on an idea, or let's say, we're trying to replace. We come in and we work together on a Monday and map out the week, and get aligned on everything.

We're trying to replace those ad hoc, very back and forth, working sessions. We're trying to then take that job and put it into email and get it done in email. The reason that we feel this stress [00:51:00] to address the inbox is that people are needing. Confirmation and alignment through back and forth in email that could be better done in these structured work sessions, collaborations sessions, or planning sessions.

We're trying to pull it off an email and that's the misfit, the tool doesn't fit the job. And I think what he's saying is you have to develop these new processes. Like I just mentioned structured work sessions, structured in-person planning sessions, something that you and I use my, where we come together and we set up the week for success by getting in front of the whiteboard together on a Monday.

Sets up a great structure for the week when there's a key job to be done, to process information, to make recommendations, to move our projects forwards. We have structured working [00:52:00] sessions in zoom or in the office in order to go with hundreds of back and forth. If you can imagine a working session done in email, it would be the longest, most painful email thread in the world.

Wouldn't it? Even recently, Mike as, as recent as this year, I've been on email threads where you've had maybe 10 or 20 people and the email thread goes. Maybe a month, two months, and it's enormous and totally unreadable, which is yeah. Yeah. That's totally unreadable. It's impossible to track.

Nobody knows what action points they need to take and what ads, what happens is a total mismatch of expectations and alignments, and exactly to your point, setting up those structured, in-person maybe working sessions in order to fully align or what it is that is meant to be happening this week on this project.[00:53:00] 

 Where are we right now without the. Working sessions being specifically, and maybe even solely focused around that one deliverable of getting all on the same page. Yeah. We all end up walking away with a slightly different idea or worse still everybody walks away with more frustration than before.

Yes. Yep. Yep. Now, as we've already gone deeper into the power of listening and to the power of changing our process, I want to come back to this idea of listening, mark, and let's have a listen to Julian treasure and this idea of how we can listen better. And in fact, Julian has not just one has five ways to listen better.

We spent roughly 60% of our communication time listening, but we're not very good at it. We retain just 25% of what we hear now. Not you, not this talk, but that is generally true. Let's [00:54:00] define listening as making meaning from. It's a mental process and it's a process of extraction. We use some pretty cool techniques to do this.

One of them is pattern recognition. So in a cocktail party like this, if I say David, Sarah pay attention, some of you just sat up. We recognize patterns to distinguish noise from signal and especially our. Different thing is another technique we use. If I left this pink noise on for more than a couple of minutes, you would literally see the hearing.

We listened to differences. We discount sounds that remain the same. And then there is a whole range of filters. These filters take us from all sound down to what we pay attention to. Most people are entirely unconscious of these filters, but they actually create our reality in a way because they tell us what we're paying attention to right now give you one example of that.

Intention is very important in sound. In listening. When I married my [00:55:00] wife, I promised her that I would listen to her every day as if for the first time. Now that's something I fall short of on a daily basis, but it's a great intention to have in a relationship. But that's not all sound places us in space.

And in time, if you close your eyes right now in this room, you're aware of the size of the room from the reverberations and the bouncing of the sound of the surfaces. And you're aware of how many people are around you because of the micro noises you're receiving and sound places us in time as well, because sound always has time embedded in it.

In fact, I would suggest that our listening is the main way that we experience the flow of time from past. So severity is time and meaning a great quote. I said at the beginning, we're losing our listening. Why did I say that? There are a lot of reasons for this. First of all, we invented ways of recording.

First writing, then audio recording, and now video recording as [00:56:00] well. The premium on accurate and careful listening has simply disappeared. Secondly, the world is now so noisy with this company going on visually and auditorily. It's just hard to listen. It's tiring to listen. Many people take refuge in headphones, but they turn big public spaces like this shared soundscapes into millions of tiny little personal sound bubbles.

And this scenario nobody's listening to. We're becoming impatient. We don't want oratory anymore. We want soundbites. And the art of conversation is being replaced dangerously. I think by personal broadcasting, I don't know how much listening there is in this conversation, which is sadly very common, especially in the UK.

 Mike, that is so much information, but information that I absolutely really enjoyed hearing. Yeah. It's a really nice [00:57:00] scientific breakdown by Julian treasure. Isn't it? The interesting thing is he says we only retain about 25% of that listening. So it's really it's really interesting that he's broken down those five of those five pattern recognition, differencing filters, intention, and sound when he said them, which were the most remarkable or which ones really stood out to you.

 For me, it was the idea of filtering. So filtering for me is something I think I'm pretty semi consciously aware of. So filtering as a quick reminder to what Julian treasure was saying is what we pay attention to. So now, if I'm in a meeting I might zone in and out, maybe I only filter and therefore pay attention to things that are important to me, to my deliverable, to what I'm, or maybe it's [00:58:00] because I'm only listening to things that are interesting to me.

Maybe it's a gossip, maybe it's a, what happened at the Christmas party. It's something that I'm going to then filter out all of the other information. And I think what Julian's then saying towards the end of that clip with regards to the idea of impatience, when I'm filtering out a lot of information and therefore not listening it's because my listening practice and behavior nowadays is impatient because there's so much.

Information that I can listen to that's out there. So I'm only going to be focused on a small amount of elements and therefore that's what I'm going to take all of my information from. And therefore I'm not going to have the full picture. What, what stood out to you, Mike? I think that we filter based on our beliefs and so forth.

And I'm just a bit surprised at how poor we are at listening [00:59:00] and how we all need to get into a bit more of this practice of active listening. Be very intentional about it when he was talking about that story of everyone walking around with headphones on you start to realize, oh, everyone's in their own little bubble on.

 How true are you? And I are doing this as well. Whether when we're on the train, when we're commuting, when we go for a run, it's something that you instinctively do, but you're right. It's it totally removes you from the big wide world, so to speak. So you don't listen or you don't communicate to individuals.

You don't say good morning to your neighbors or to your colleague because you're totally in your own zone. It's so true. It's so true. So there you have it. We've really cracked the nut on going deeper and understanding communication. We've really dug into the power of listening. You can change the mind of a president.

We've really taken a moment [01:00:00] to understand this hyperactive hive, mind this need for us to really do deep work together rather than the ping pong in an email. And we've really understood some very practical ways we can start to become more conscious and more active in our and our listening. I think it's time for us to pull us mark and say, okay, we're in the middle of the masterclass, where two thirds of the way through March, where should our members and subscribers go?

If they're really getting into this, we've got reading lists. We've got so many goodies related to the art of communication. Where do they go to get everything they need to master communicator? From members and subscribers pop along to moonshots dot I O it's a destination that you're probably all very familiar with by now.

You can go and find all sorts of comprehensive breakdowns and all of our weekly shows, but also just [01:01:00] for you guys, we've got lots and lots of breakdowns for all of our master series as well. You've got topics of motivation, first principles, collaboration and teamwork habits, circle of influence as well as today's episode is the art of communication.

You can get those show notes. You can listen to our reading list. You can get transcripts as well as a number of exciting external links that we link to that helped influence and inspire us to pull together these shows so that we can understand a little bit more about the art of communication. Okay.

The home Strait is here with us. We are now going to spend some time together, mark yourself, me and all of our listeners. We're going to get into adopting better ways of communicating. And this is really where we bring it home. So hopefully we've made you aware. We've disrupted you a little bit. We've inspired you a little bit.

We've given you that deeper understanding of [01:02:00] communication. Now it's all about getting it done. Not only in your professional life, in your personal life too. So mark, where do we want to start this adventure? I want to start with something that's again, perhaps a little bit surprising Mike. So with the art of communication, it's not only about listening, but it's also about how we present ourselves.

So we've got a great clip now from Danann Haya Haritaki who breaks down at four essential body language tips. He's a world champion public speaker, and he's going to help you and I, and our members keep our bodies open. That's okay. You already got arrested. One of the most important things that you need to realize is when you get nervous, you try to cover your white log-ins and that's why you would see a lot of speakers sometimes for their hands, bring their hands in front of them.

And that's a sign of nervousness. Great speakers. Keep the body open. So there is no [01:03:00] barrier between you and me. Raise your hand. If you're having an emotional mother. Putting them all together, you get mama

and something that when you're starting out, you gotta be very conscious about it. Keep your body open. It's tip number two, have your palms open. Did this exercise with me, take a look at your palms, done them around. Take a look at the inside of your palms. Again. What side relaxes you are. If you really concentrate, when you look at the inside of your Palm, your eye relaxes, and a lot of great speakers, they open their palms towards the audience, showing them more openness and that allows the audience to connect with the speaker better, as opposed to showing the back of your hand.

And I learned the unfairly quality of unconditional love from my wife. Number three, get comfortable with the stage when you're comfortable on the stage that you're speaking on your [01:04:00] body's free to move about use body language. But if you're not comfortable with that stage, and if you feel foreign on that stage, what happens is your body language starts to constrict and you start to cover your body up.

And I'm going, a son sees a mother cry. He is a shame. That's a life-changing moment. She looked at me and said, son, I want you to be a better man,

whatever you don't touch the podium. As soon as you do that, you're going to be leaning on it. You're going to be shaking that podium and you will be doing all sorts of things on the podium. So what you do is you keep a comfortable distance between you and the podium. You can keep your notes on it, but you can use your hands to.

Don't rest your hands on the podium. So keep a distance and you can gesture use body language as you want from a little distance from podium. Wow. Four golden rules for what might feel a little old school. [01:05:00] In-person public speaking. Huh? Not a lot of that's happened in the last couple of years. Has it marked?

No, we've been a little bit restricted with regards to getting up on stage and giving speeches, but maybe Mike, one day we can put these lessons that we're learning in that clip from Dan and Jaya into practice. I think these are pretty actionable practical tips on that. Keep your body open. I think that's like very kind of non-defensive behavior.

Have your palms open. Never heard that one mark, but it makes total sense, right? Because if a closed hand it's a bit more aggressive. It's a bit more tense. We keep it open. It's a, sort of an honest gesture, getting comfortable with the stage. Not feeling like you're out of place or out of sorts.

And another one I've never heard before. Don't touch. The podium and he's right, because as soon as you prop up against it, you want to lean on the podium assert oneself on the podium. I thought that [01:06:00] was really good. Yeah. When, whenever I used to, and again, we haven't done this for a while.

We Mike, but back in the day, when we would present to partners and clients, and we'd have a big old presentation, we'd get it up on the screen or the wall or print it out. Nevermind be the tendency that I would have had is to lean on a table or lean on the wall. And he's totally right. As soon as I started to do that in, in a particular meeting, let's say I would then instinctively repeat it.

So I'd lean on the table again or again. And by doing that, it probably creates quite a strange sight for the audience to look at. But more importantly, it is going to distract me because my body is naturally leaning towards it and starting to want to. Sit on it or shake it as he says, shake the podium.

So yeah, I can totally relate to that one. I'd never heard that either. So I thought this was great to remind us that [01:07:00] we will get back to a total. Amongst our colleagues and guests in person, we will get back to the stage and give public talks. So just a reminder to each and every one of us that there's some great tips there.

And if you want to touch up more on that public speaking, we'll have notes and links to all of the goodies there in our show notes@moonshots.io. And I think it wouldn't be fitting if we were going to do a masterclass without Simon Sinek, and he has a very good model. A great little acronym for us.

That's going to help us manage. Confrontation. And the reason that this matters is that we often avoid tough conversations. We often avoid hard conversations, emotional conversations, just like we talked about earlier in the show, like we can get a little bit defensive. We can get a little bit awkward.

 Simon's [01:08:00] going to give us some great advice on how we can manage those moments of confrontation. Effectively. The effective confrontation always requires three things. We came up with an acronym for it, but don't remember what the acronym is, but it requires three things, right? You have to have, you have to be able to state how you feel.

Oh FBI feelings, behavior impact. So you have to say specifically how you feel. You have to do better than happy, sad. You have to say, and I'll tell you all the video, you have to say specifically the behavior that they did, that, that, that caused the feeling. And you have to say the impact.

If that behavior continues, you cannot make a generic, it has to be specific. Those three things can be in any order, but they all have to be there. We've gamed it out with one and two, and it does not work. You have to have all three, the [01:09:00] order doesn't matter. And it goes something like this, you cannot say you're always late to meetings.

You ha you need to come to meetings on time. Otherwise bad things will happen. Because you're making a generic, because they'll say I was at the meeting on time on Thursday and you'd be like yes, you were. But in general, and that's what ends up happening. It falls apart. So you have to write down the statement.

 You have to know it before you have to be prepared for this confrontation. So you would say something like when you showed up to the meeting late on Thursday, even though it's all the time you pick one, when you show up to the meeting late on Thursday, I feel very disconnected from you. And my concern is if that you continue to show up late to meetings that the D this condition, then this disconnection will grow to the point where I'll stop trusting you.

And then you shut up. So you would say to him when you heard that idea, I'm, you can say I'm [01:10:00] completely confused, or I'm completely stuck because on Thursday in the meeting, you said you wanted this. And when our people gave us this, you rejected it. And my fear is, if you continue to do that, they will stop caring.

And then you shut up. And then when he says, yeah, but they don't understand you repeat the statement and he says, yeah, but you dah dah, you repeat the statement and believe it or not, that statement works extremely well to make them start taking accountability. So it's about managing up feelings, behavior impact.

 Mike, this is a great little now a great little practice to put into place. Isn't it? It's specific in structuring how you can have those tough conversations, which in general, we, as humans tend not to want to get into. [01:11:00] And I actually think that if you take that is when you do this thing, here's how I feel.

And here's the impact that, that creates. If you can deliver this in a way that's absent of judgment and more of an observation, and it's very framed. But not venomous. I think that's the key thing. Then I think it can lead to really good, really positive developments in relationships with people. And I think one of the important things to remember is when you do communicate effectively like this, you'll often realize that someone is unaware of the impact that their behavior has.

And so when structuring like this, it can be a really effective way to deliver the message. I would say the big thing here is just to remove any judgment in how you speak in this situation. Because once you start the judging, then. That is [01:12:00] that's causing some defensive reactions, isn't it?

Yeah, exactly. As you mentioned, when you introduced that clip from Simon, it reminds me of the Sharon Ellison clip that we heard at the beginning of today's show. So we naturally have those unconscious behaviors where we lean towards maybe being a little bit defensive when you break down the feelings behavior.

And most importantly, the impact it has. I think for me, if I was the receiver and somebody had broken down a moment of communication and they had used that effective way of describing that confrontation moment to me, or said better, somebody who came to me and had a moment of confrontation and they broke it down across those three elements and pillars.

It does help me as a, an offender, so to speak, understand it and understand the other person's [01:13:00] point of view a lot clearer. Yeah. That's why it's so important, isn't it? Because otherwise, if I'm the one saying to you, Hey, you haven't done this. We didn't prepare their show better. This is a pain, then it's just going to go backwards and forwards because neither of us are going to necessarily understand the other person's point of view without having a structure in place.

And what Simon also calls out, write it down. Be prepared so good at helping me prepare for maybe a slightly difficult conversation that I've got to have when I've written it out. When I know the facts like the back of my hand. So I, so yeah, so true. So we've learnt in this chapter of communication, we've learned about your body language, keeping your body open.

We've got the feelings, behavior impact model to use for those really tricky moments. I think it would only be appropriate mark, that we returned to the [01:14:00] art of listening. Maybe it might sound a little somewhat contrarion that when we talk about communication, we've decided to put such a big emphasis on listing, but it's true.

And here we have to round out the show, Julian treasure with five exercises to help us listen very consciously. The first one is silent. Just three minutes. A day of silence is a wonderful exercise to reset your ears and to recalibrate so that you can hear the quiet again. If you can't get absolute silence, go for quiet.

That's absolutely fine. Second, I call this the mixer. So even if you're in a noisy environment like this, and we all spend a lot of time in places like this, listen in the coffee bar to how many channels of sound can I hear? How many individual channels in that mix am I listening to? You can do it in a beautiful place as well.

Like a lake. How many birds am I hearing? Where are they? Where are those [01:15:00] ripples? It's a great exercise for improving the quality of your listening. The third, this exercise I call savoring. And this is a beautiful exercise. It's about enjoying mundane sounds. This for example is my tumble dryer. It's a waltz 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3.

I love it. Oh, just try this one on for size.

Wow. So mundane sounds can be really interesting if you pay attention, I call that the hidden choir it's around us all the time. The next exercise is probably the most important of all of these. If you just take one thing away, this is listening positions, the idea that you can move your listing position.

To what's appropriate to what you're listening to. This is playing with those filters. You remember, I gave you those filters at the beginning. It's starting to play with them as leavers to get conscious about them and to move to different places. These are just some of the listening positions or scales of listening positions that you can use.

There are [01:16:00] many have fun with that. It's very exciting. And finally, an acronym, you can use this in listening and communication if you're in any one of those roles. And I think that probably is everybody who's listening to this talk. The acronym is rasa, which is the Sanskrit word for juice or essence and rasa stands for receive, which means pay attention to the person.

Appreciate making little noises like, oh, okay. Summarize the words. So it's very important than communication and ask questions after. These are such practical little tips from Julian treasure on the mic. I think he's really calling out and we'll break each of these down in a second.

But for me, if I take a step back and I reflect on what we've already learned around the idea of communication, these are great little practical tips that I think all of us can put into our daily little habits. Isn't it just to [01:17:00] essentially work out something that I've never really thought about working out or exercising or practicing before.

And that's my ability to listen and to hear better. Yeah. This Ressa receive appreciate, summarize and ask brilliant way to end the show. So really pay attention to the person, receive what they are having to share with you. I appreciate gesture, acknowledge what's coming to you summarize it back, which I love doing, which is let me see if I understand this.

So what you're saying is that kind of stuff. And lastly, tell me more about, you mentioned this. Tell me more about that, because I'd like to understand that better. This Russert very powerful very important in order to achieve what you mentioned earlier, the alignment pace, if you and I are going to be on the same page, I got to receive it.

Appreciate it. [01:18:00] Summarize it, ask back, make sure I got it. Lock it in. It's all about R a S a rasa from Julian treasure. Isn't it? Yep. Because without doing that and for me as a listener, I think if I follow Ross, I'm going to be forced to listen a little bit better. And when I referred to in Julian's other clip the idea of filtration for me being a bit of a challenge, I think this would help all of us who occasionally drift in conversations, whether it's on a zoom call or on a face to face meeting.

I think when you find yourself drifting your attention's going a little bit rough coming back to rasa, receive, appreciate, summarize, and ask and holding yourself accountable to doing those four steps where you have to ask a question, you have to try and summarize. You have to appreciate where they're saying [01:19:00] like, okay, I get it.

Or just receive paying attention. I think that. Helping me stay focused on what the individual is saying. So in a funny sort of way, it's allowing me to drown everything else out and just pay attention to the individual who's doing the talking and the communicating. Yeah. And I think that the the interesting by-product of using rasa is that you end up becoming deeply connected and understanding of what your the person across the the other side of the table is trying to share with you.

And the nice thing is that if you're that deliberate, they're going to feel that you're making that effort. So they're going to be more collaborative. They're going to be more prepared to work with you rather than against you, but also if you're looking for answers, To a [01:20:00] question or you're looking to solve a problem, then deliberately receiving the information deliberately really acknowledging and summarizing it, asking questions back.

If you do this sufficiently, it's so evident that the path will just appear as to what is the solution or at least a potential plan of action. And I think that if we can summarize the big message that we're getting today, if you invest heavily in the listening, then when you speak, you will be better heard when you work with others, you'll collaborate better.

And it seems to me that in this world of attention deficit listening is a bit of a premium. Yeah. We heard that 25% is all we retain when somebody is talking [01:21:00] to us or we only here, we only retain what we hear about 25%. You're right, Mike, I think we've made the case today that it's more difficult than ever, perhaps to really communicate well and to hear and listen and appreciate what people are saying.

 But I think I've certainly learned a lot in this breakdown or the art of communication that I feel as though I can put pretty easily or at least proactively into practice going forward. What one item do you think one activity or habit do you think you'll try and adopt now that we've done this deep investigation?

I must admit, I think it's gotta be rasa. I think it's gotta be a Julian treasuries little acronym there. I think it just, again, If it helps me focus on the individual, it helps me reflect as well as collaborate better. And I think that will just [01:22:00] help me be a better communicator with my team and those that I'm collaborating with.

Yeah. I totally agree. Mark, listen, thank you to you and thank you to you, our members, our subscribers, we are so delighted to share with you the journey of being the best version of ourselves. And today it was all about the art of communication. And we did a lot of learning out loud. It started with understanding the PA the patterns of defensive communication, the limitations of email and the great sir, Alex Ferguson said it was all about well done.

And then we got into some of the deals. The more profound areas of communication in it really was listening. It was listening deeply. It was listening better and it was overcoming [01:23:00] our hyperactive hive, mind. It's all jumbled up in that email inbox. And we brought it home with some great habits that we can adopt.

We understood the forest central body language tips from none other than a world champion public speaker. We also. Three clear FBI steps for managing effective confrontation, but bringing it home was the consciousness of listening was the five exercises of silence focus, savoring the mundane sounds in our listening positions, do those things, and you will be able to apply them to your inbox, to your public talks and everything in between, because today has been about the art of communication, which is essential.

If you want to be the best version of yourself. And that's what we're all about here on the moonshots master series, that's a wrap.