Habit 5

1
Habit 5

• Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

2
Before I can walk in anothers shoes, I must
first remove my own. -Anonymous
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Helping Hand

• Its our tendency to want to swoop down from the
  sky and solve everyones problems before we
  understand what the problem is
• We assume that we know what is going on and that
  we know how to fix it
• It is important to help people, but you need to
  make sure that you know exactly what they are
  dealing with

4
Indian Proverb

• Listen, or thy tongue will make thee deaf.
• If you do not listen and all you do is talk, you
  will never be able to hear what is really going
  on!

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• In order to have the power to communicate and
  influence people can be summed up with the
  following phrase
• Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

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Learn to Listen

• In other words, listen first, talk second
• If you can learn to see anothers point of view
  before sharing your own-an entire world of
  understanding will be opened up to you

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The Deepest Need of the Human Heart

• The deepest need of the human heart is to be
  understood
• Everyone wants to be respected and valued for who
  they are- an individual
• You can never figure out who a person really is
  if you do not listen to what they have to say

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Understanding

• People wont open up unless they feel genuine
  understanding
• People dont care how much you know until they
  know how much you care.
• You could be the smartest person in the world,
  but if you dont listen
• If someone isnt willing to listen to your
  problem, why would you want to share it with them

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• You can show you care by taking the time to
  listen without giving advice
• Remember that it is important to listen first and
  then speak

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Listening

• To understand someone you must listen to them
• The problem is that most of us dont know how to
  listen
• Throughout school we have learned how to read,
  write, speak, but we havent learned to listen

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Listening

• When people talk we seldom listen because we are
  usually too busy preparing a response, judging,
  or filtering their words through our own ideas

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Five Poor Listening Styles

• Spacing out
• Pretend listening
• Selective listening
• Word listening
• Self-centered listening

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Spacing Out

• This is when someone is talking to us but we
  ignore them because our mind in wandering off
  somewhere else
• They may have something important to say, but
  were caught up in our own thoughts
• You dont want to have the reputation of being
  out of it

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Pretend listening

• You arent really paying attention, but you
  pretend that you are by saying words like,
  yeah, uh-huh, cool, right, etc.
• The speaker will usually catch-on and will
  probably decide that you dont want to take the
  time to hear what they are trying to say

15
Selective Listening

• This is where you only listen to the part of the
  conversation that interests you
• After you have heard this, you tune out

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Word Listening

• You are paying attention to what someone is
  saying, but you are listening only to the words,
  not to the body language, the feelings, or the
  true meaning behind the words
• As a result we miss out on what is really being
  said

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Self-Centered Listening

• This occurs when we see everything from our own
  point of view
• Instead of standing in anothers shoes, we want
  them to stand in ours
• This is where comments like, I know exactly how
  you feel come from
• We dont know exactly how they feel, we know
  exactly how we would feel in that situation

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Self-Centered Listening

• This is often a game of one-upmanship, where we
  try to one-up each other
• Ex. You think your day was bad? Wait until you
  hear what happened to me!
• When we listen from our point of view, we usually
  reply in one of three ways
• Judge, Advise, or Probe

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Judging

• Sometimes when listening to others we make
  judgments about them or what they are saying
• If you are so busy judging, how can you really
  hear what they are saying???
• Pg. 169

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Advising

• This is when we give advice drawn from our own
  experience
• Kind of like the Well, when I was your age
  speech that you often get from elders
• Instead of listening to what is being said, you
  think about your own personal experience and give
  advice based on that
• Pg. 170

21
Probing

• This occurs when you try to dig up emotions
  before people are ready to share them
• Parents probe teenagers all the time
• They just want to know what is going on with your
  life and they start asking questions
• People feel like they are being interrogated
• Pg.170

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Genuine Listening

• Listen with your eyes, heart, and ears
• 7 of communication is contained in words, 53 is
  body language, 40 is tone of voice
• For example, you can change the meaning of a
  sentence just by emphasizing different words
• I didnt say you had an attitude problem.
• I didnt say you had an attitude problem

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Genuine Listening

• 2. Stand in their shoes
• Take off your shoes and stand in anothers
• Unless you walk a mile in another mans
  moccasins you cant imagine the smell
• -Robert Byrne
• Many people look at conversations as a
  competition, its my point of view vs. yours
• Put yours aside and listen to what they have to
  say

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Genuine Listening

• 3. Practice Mirroring
• Think like a mirror
• What does a mirror do? It doesnt judge, it
  doesnt give advice, it reflects
• Repeat back what the other person is saying and
  feeling
• Phrases As I get it, you felt that, So, as I
  see it, I can see that youre feeling, You
  feel that

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Communicating with Parents

• If you want to improve your relationship with
  your parents, try listening to them
• Parents have problems too, worrying about jobs,
  how they will pay for your braces, unfulfilled
  dreams
• They laugh, cry, get their feelings hurt, and
  dont always have it together, just like you and
  me

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Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood

• Take the time to really listen to people
• Make sure that you are letting them say what they
  need to say, and then you speak
• Make sure that you are willing to listen to
  everyone that you talk to, this includes friends,
  parents, other adults, etc.
• When you really listen to what people are saying,
  you can better understand what is being said