The Skill That Will Double Your Sales (Without Saying a Word)

This may be the most powerful skill you'll ever learn, and it doesn't even make any noise. Welcome to the show. Tired of the hype about living a dream? It's time for truth.This is the place for tools, power, and real talk so you can create the life you dream and deserve your ultimate life. Subscribe, share, create. You have have infinite power. I want to teach you how to take control of nearly every situation and conversation.Welcome back to your ultimate life. This is not about authority or dominance.This is about a skill so important that whoever masters this wins every single time without question and without fail. That skill is listening. Listening is sometimes felt or interpreted as a passive activity. Not making noise. Right?It is that if I'm not making noise and you're talking, it might seem like I'm listening. But as you know, a thousand other things can be going on and are usually going on.So I want to talk about this entire episode is it will be a master class in listening. And I can promise you you will double your sales if you learn this skill like I teach you right now.It has worked for me and many that I have trained to sell. Double your sales, maybe more, maybe triple if you learn. Learn and implement to the deepest part of your soul what I'm about to teach you.So welcome back to your ultimate life. This podcast is about helping you create a life that you love, purpose, prosperity, and joy.Now, this set of episodes, the last couple and the next few, are about skills about to create transformation, to become someone different. Because what we have in our lives right now is what we've created. You know, we were born into some kind of family.Maybe single parent, maybe an orphanage, maybe two parents, maybe four parents, I don't know. But after we get out of that and that upbringing does whatever it does, some people have great upbringing.Some people have terrifying upbringings with everything. And those all leave marks and imprints. I got that. And, you know, I'm one. So are you. Whether it was good or bad doesn't actually matter.And I say that in all sincerity, not that it doesn't leave marks, because it does. It leaves all kinds of marks, good ones, bad ones, things we're grateful for, things we wish had never happened, all that stuff.True, true, true, true.So don't get off the rails here because you're trying to disagree with how I'm characterizing that when you get on your own after you're 20 or 22 or 24, somewhere in there, maybe sooner than that, you own your life. I didn't learn that I kept living in the stories that I had before.I kept living stuck in things that I kept insisting were true even though I knew that they weren't. We all do that. This is your get out of jail free card. You're free right this minute.I don't care how long you've been living stuck in anything, you are free from that right here, right now. This is your declaration of independence. You know what the steps are for freedom.And this is a different episode, because today we're talking about listening. 1. Forgive. Forgive everybody, everything they ever did. All. All the people everywhere, all the time.Don't worry about demanding justice most of the time. It's not ours to meet out anyway, okay? Karma works. What goes around comes around. And it's not our job to make that happen. So forgive. Part 2.Forgive yourself for anything you did or didn't do. Forgive yourself for judging yourself. Forgive yourself for all the inaction. I didn't start on this journey till I was 52.Believe me, I had a boatload to forgive others myself, mistakes I made. Forgive myself again for judging myself as a rotten, you know, so and so because I'd taken so long and didn't know, and on and on and on.So forgive yourself. Get out of it now that you're free from that good, that's done. And that's a whole different episode.We'll do that another time in detail, because I realize a glib pronouncement doesn't make it so. But I'm saying that because you can and you can have it right now. So let's start from that place of ownership.You own your life and you get to decide what to do with it from this moment on. I don't care what's happened before. Regardless of what's happened before, you matter now. And you can have big impact now. Purpose. Prosperity.Prosperity and love and kindness and joy and relationship with God and your partner and your kids and everything. It's all on the plate for you, right here, right now. And prosperity and cash, bloated bank accounts to do good and add good to the world.Today, I'm going to talk about one of the skills that makes that possible that nobody teaches. Nobody teaches, Very few teach, and even far, far fewer learn. And it is maybe the superpower of all skills, and that is listening.I don't mean hearing. I mean listening. So let's talk about the ways that we listen. Okay? Most people believe they're good listeners. If you ask people, are you a good.A good listener? Most people say yes. So most People believe that. Guess what? They're not. Flat out, hands down, people hear words. Maybe they hold polite silence.Maybe they even ask clarifying questions. What they don't do is receive.People speaking, with all of its body language and facial expressions and movements and voice modulation and whispering and shouting and all that, that is an expression. It's an outward transmission. What we're not doing most of the time when we listen is we're not really receiving all of that.We're doing something else instead. Listening is the most claimed and least practiced skill in the world. And that's worth saying again, it is the most claimed. Yeah, I'm a good listener.And the least practiced skill in the world. That ought to scare the crap out of you. Because the person that listens wins. The one who listens, wins, receives.So let's talk about what real listening is. Because real powerful listings may be the most powerful, the most awesome, powerful thing you'll ever learn. So what is it? What is real listening?Well, let's talk about it in a minute. For a minute about what it's not. Real listening is not waiting your turn, right?Like, just hanging out till it's your turn to talk and almost speaking four times until you realize it's not quite your turn. Oh, yeah. You ever done that? Or had it done to you? That's not listening. Real listening is not planning your response, ticking all the thing.No, I got to say that. Oh, that's wrong. Ooh, got to fix that. That is not listening either. Real listening is not fixing. Oh, you know you can fix that. I know exactly what.That's not listening either. Real listening is not giving advice either. Ah, there we go. We just shot down half the things we do. Or more than half. Let's talk about now.That's what it's not. Let's talk about what it is. Real listening is having your eyes fully engaged. Eyes fully engaged.When someone is looking at you, not staring like a cat on a fence, but really looking at you, you can feel when they are really listening. The eyes are the windows to the soul, and there is magic in that truthful connection. So eyes are fully engaged. The body is still for the most part.You know, you may move or adjust something, but for the most part, it's completely still. Right? The mind is quiet, like you're not thinking. Thinking gets in the way of listening.Your heart is open because most of the receiving of the person comes in the heart, not in the mind. But the heart can't get engaged when the mind is busy realistening Means your attention is undivided. Undivided. You're not looking at your watch.You're not wondering when it's going to be your turn to talk. You're not hoping you can remember all the things you thought of to say. Listening is not hearing words. It is truly, fully receiving the other human.That's part of this. Okay, so here are some more things that it really is, and that is noticing the tone. Like paying attention to the musicality, the cadence, the volume.Noticing hesitation, feeling what's not said, feeling energy shifts, right? So you don't listen with your ears. That's where the sound goes in. But you receive with your heart and your eyes.You listen with your whole body, and you've heard it said. You know, listening to reply, that's out of the question. And listening to understand is medium level. That's mediocre. Listening to reply is bogus.Listening to understand is even mediocre. But listening to receive all of it. You don't filter anything. You just receive it all. So that's what listening is.Now let's talk about why we don't do that. One reason is we've got an ego. If we're. If we're busy worrying about us sounding smart.So if I'm thinking about me during the conversation, I'm not listening. If I'm wondering what they think of me, I'm not listening. If I'm thinking that, well, I need to contribute, I'm not listening. You're not listening.Well, I have something important to say. I don't care if you're thinking I'm right or I want to be right or I need to be right or I need to fix something. You're not listening. Ego talks.Presence listens. Okay. Another reason we don't listen besides ego is speed. We think we're busy, we're rushing. We've got to get somewhere or do something.We're worried it will break our train of being. Or thinking where we interrupt because we're trying to hurry. We're trying to finish someone else's thought or sentence.And so the truth about that is we listen fast, but we're listening in a shallow way. This is a thing that I have had to work on still and work on.When Joy and I talk, I talk too much or I interrupt or I think I know where she's going or this, that, and the other. This is something I work on constantly just to be there and listen. All right? Another thing that we do instead of listening is we're fixing stuff.We're trying to solve a problem, that's another thing. Slap me around somehow. I decided that my role is somehow to fix stuff. And it ain't, you know, sometimes, but lots of times it's not.Instead of listening, we give advice too early.One of the things that is so powerful about coaching is, you know, the thrust is not to give advice or to fix, but to help somebody find their own truth, like find all of it for themselves. Because things we find or discover or create remain with us. They're powerful, and they stay with us.Things that come in from outside, maybe they stay and maybe they bounce off. Mostly bounce off. So giving advice, at least too early and maybe at all, people really don't need to be fixed. They need to be felt.They need to have the experience of being seen. Now, you might be arguing with me in your head, but I want you to think about your experience when you felt listened to, heard, seen, fully received.That is so flipping juicy. And you know how much you love it. Well, listening is giving that gift to somebody else.Another reason we don't listen is we have this huge fear of silence. We got this idea that something's wrong with silence.Now, there's a jazz musician, and if you like jazz, you know Miles Davis, and he wasn't the only one that did this, but he was famous for it. Miles was famous for space. And I read a quote somewhere that Miles could make more out of a space than other musicians might make out of 10 notes.Space is beautiful. You know why most of our learning doesn't come when the sounds are being made. I want you to think about that. It's not when the talking is happening.It's afterwards, when we have time to reflect, when we have time to integrate or absorb. We have time to, quote, let it sink in. Because during that time of sinking in, we make connections to other things or we. We have those aha moments.Oh, wait a minute. Yeah. You know, that kind of feeling, speed gets rid of that. Fear of silence gets rid of that.One of the most important things I help speakers realize when I'm teaching stage speaking and selling from stage or teaching or engaging audiences is know when to shut up. Know when to allow that beautiful silence to just sit there. I did that. I do this often. Sometimes it's even dramatic.So I will start a talk with silence. Someone will introduce me, and I might just walk back and forth and say nothing.I remember in a room not too long ago, a year, nine months ago, just standing microphone in hand, not adjusting notes. I didn't have any not adjusting anything. Standing there, looking across the room very slowly. Each table, each person.I ran my eyes over them all the way across, and then the next row and the next and the next. And it was a big space, and it set up the stage perfectly to ask them how they felt in the silence, what they experienced.We're uncomfortable often with silence, and that's another reason we don't listen, is because when there's silence, we feel like we need to fill it and say something. Well, in that space is where understanding happens. It's where soul connections take place. Silence is powerful and good. It's where the truth shows up.Okay, so let's talk about what happens. Because we've talked about what listening is and what it isn't, why we don't do it, what we're uncomfortable with. Now let's talk about what.What effects happen when we listen with your whole self. Well, there's several layers, a bunch of layers of things that happen. First of all, people relax.If you're with someone and they are completely listening to you, doing nothing else, not looking out the window, not looking at the watch, not fidgeting or jittering, but they're totally with you. Unconsciously, and maybe even consciously, you relax. Your body relaxes, you sink into yourself a little more, you become more comfortable.Your heart relaxes, your heartbeat slows, your blood pressure drops. Neurotransmitters of connection come into the body, so you relax. Another thing that happens is people open up.Like you can have the experience, the feeling of opening up, breathing. It's like I can breathe again. People have said that, and there's nothing to do with breathing, but it feels like I can breathe again.So people open, and from that openness, then people trust. And I know without even asking you, because you're not here, I know two things. Number one, I love you.And number two, I know right now you're thinking of an experience that you had where somebody listened to you like that, and how that both relax you opened you and caused trust. That invisible Bono. All that stuff's invisible. Well, the relaxation you can measure with heart rate and blood pressure and neurotransmitter anyway.And there's neck another layer deeper than that. So the next layer down when you listen like that is people see themselves differently.When people are being listened to and they're experiencing that total attention, their feelings inside change. They're no longer harried. They feel valued because someone's taking the time to give them that gift of attention. So they feel valued.They feel like A sense of importance. Not arrogance, but importance that somebody is listening so they see themselves differently.Another thing that happens, it's very, very important in the context of coaching and personal development is people say things they they did not know that they knew they did not know were in them to say at that moment. They make connections and have insights that surprise even them. They'll make observations and you listening. Wow, that's good.That's all that's required. They say stuff and have insights they didn't know they knew. And then of course that's where breakthroughs happen. That's where changes happen.People feel differently. And you know why? Just because you listened. Just because you listened. So here's where you could conclude from that.That transformation or the changing from one state to another doesn't come through advice. It comes from being seen and fully heard and accepted and landed. That's where that energy happens.And yes, sometimes a piece of advice can be valuable. But the real deep stuff happens in listening. That's why I said to start with the person that listens best wins. Whatever wins means controls the room.If you want. So let's make some another observation here. Most people go through life never feeling fully heard. Do you know that?How many places do you have right now where you can be absolutely, fully and completely heard? I asked that question often. And often it brings tears to someone's eyes. They'll think and they'll say none.And those that have it immediately know you. You have such power and I invite you right now to be the person that changes that.Be that gal, be that guy who is the place that allows someone to be fully heard. Okay, now let's talk about what happens when you do that. Okay? You'll have best conversations you ever had in your life.You'll have more, more powerful and deeper, more meaningful, more memorable, more impactful on both parties conversations than ever before. It will allow you and pour miracle grow on your relationship and allow you to create the best relationships you've ever had.You'll be the best leader you can imagine. And here's what happens if you choose to do that kind of listening.You'll create those best conversations, that best leadership and the best relationships in your whole life. Those all share that trait. Now let's go back to what I said in the beginning. Whoever listens best wins only all the time.So you might wonder how do I do that? Well, it's a learnable skill. Remember it's not about you. So you got to get out of your own head.You got to catch Yourself thinking and undo the thinking. No, thinking is required for listening. Love is required for listening. Focus is required. Thinking is not required.Practice, just like anything else, will help you catch yourself thinking, catch yourself wandering. Come back in the room, come back in the energy. Now I want to raise something here that can be scary.I just released a book a month, well, a few months ago, four or five months ago, coaching and the rise of AI. And I've conducted now some 25 or 30 episodes of my podcast. 30 I think about coaching and AI and how AI is going to change coaching forever.So I want to talk about AI here for a minute. Lang. Large language models, whichever one or ones you favor. AI doesn't interrupt you, it doesn't respond.So in that sense you have its absolute and full attention. And it can also ask questions. And it does. I know that from my own interaction.I used AI for hundreds of hours in research, writing that book, Coaching and the Rise of AI about what it does, what it can do, what's already been created, what the creation trajectory is, etc. Etc. And I used it to analyze coaching models and a bunch of other stuff. And it listens or simulates listening really well.It poses questions really well, it summarizes well, it reflects really well, it cuts through the noise really well. It can get to the salient features of things really well. And it also can simulate empathy.And I emphasize simulate because the circuits don't feel anything.I've had that discussion with the various models that I use a bunch of times, and it regularly, excuse me, reminds me that it's simply reflecting, reflecting what it sees, collecting, collating, summarizing, right? And so it can simulate empathy.And I've had the time, time where I've read what it has written as a reflection and it has caused emotion in me, right? I, I weep, I tear up. But the tearing up is a reflection of what you are.And so in that way it does not listen because it cannot be present with you when you're listening with your whole body, with your eyes and your ears and your energy and your uninterrupted focus and those, all those thousands of micro expressions on your face that indicate rapt focus and interest. AI cannot do that, and it cannot create the feeling and the safety that you can create with listening.AI doesn't have any energy, it doesn't have a body, and it doesn't have any lived awareness. I mean, you know, all that, that's not news.But sometimes it can be fooling us if we allow ourselves to be fooled because of Its ability to sympath, emulate empathy, or simulate empathy. Emulate, simulate. Whatever, right? And it does it really well.But we need to remember both as we use it for ourselves and if you use it in your coaching or research what it is and what it isn't. So my focus today is really to teach you what's in listening and then to help you understand how powerful it is.AI can mirror, but it cannot meet you. We cannot meet you where you are, Despite how good it is at emulating or simulating empathy.Your advantage in any conversation is not your intelligence. It's not your brains and your quick wit. It is your presence. And I say that not lightly at all. We have.We have presence, the energy that emanates from our souls, our eyes, our ears, our energy. The energy that even emanates from the silence. That's a perfect example. I couldn't. That couldn't be more perfect.If I'm working with AI and I open it up, even if I've been in conversation and I look at the blank screen and I read what was there before, it's just sitting there, blank screen, waiting. It's not even waiting. It's just sitting there until I put something in.Waiting implies an energy, an anxious energy, or a energy of trepidation can wait fearfully. You can wait anxiously, you can wait excitedly. So it's not even waiting, it's just there.If I'm with you and I walk in and we haven't said anything yet, the waiting carries energy. Good, bad, excited, not. But boy, is it charged. And when you look at a black screen, it is not charged.And so in the nothing is the energy, there's the truth. In the nothing is the energy that AI cannot do. So don't get that confused with listening in any way, shape or form.Your advantage, again, is not your intelligence, it's your presence. So let's talk about some practical things, because I want you to create your ultimate life. If you want to.I want you to have purpose, to choose a powerful, meaningful purpose that drives you every day of your life. That might change over time. Mine certainly has. But living every day with purpose is an energy beyond compare. It's so amazing to live with purpose.And you have it every day, all the time, and it's so exciting. Okay, so here's some practical ways to learn that listening skill that we've talked about, to learn how to do it and become a master at it.Here's some things to do immediately, immediately in your very, very, very next conversation, and to notice about all your conversations. First of all, slow down. Slow down. Right? It's not. Speed is not required. Getting the last word or the first word is not required.Getting everything said that you need to say, squeezing it in is not required. All of those things subtract from listening. They cause waves and disturbance and disruption, speed and anxiety, and all that stuff comes through.So slow down consciously in your very next conversation. Slow down. Point number two, do not interrupt. And do not almost interrupt. You know, where you're like, now.It's funny because as I interview guests on either the podcast here or LA Talk Radio or one of the other shows that I have, I have to be skillful at interrupting, guiding the conversation, and still listening the way I'm talking to you. Because we're on a time constraint and we have a certain amount of material to cover.Not prescripted or something, but there are, you know, different stages to the conversation. So don't interrupt is absolutely critical, and sometimes it's required, but as a general rule, simply don't interrupt. Listen, be there.Rule number three, slow down is, number one, don't interrupt. Number two, number three, don't fix. Like, if your mind is busy thinking about what they need to do to fix a thing, you're not listening.There'll be plenty of time for that when you've listened and the entire topic is out on the table in a blob. There it is, all on the table, complete. Now we can look at it from different angles and talk about it. So there's plenty of time for that later.So don't fix. Don't listen to respond or to reload, right? Listening to respond. That's so irritating.Because when you're talking to somebody and you, you can see, you can see it in their eyes. The wheels are turning, people. I can see your wheels turning, right? You can see someone thinking, and you know, they're just ready.And maybe they don't go a bunch of times that tell you they're exploding with whatever it is they've got to say. When people do that, I just say, wow, I can see you're bursting with something. Go ahead. And I invite them to get it out there.Because I know that while that's going on, they're not listening. Neither are we. If we're bursting to respond. We've stopped listening. We have stopped listening, okay?So don't prepare response, don't fix, don't interrupt, and slow down. If you just practice those four things, you'll double your ability to listen. Now, there are more things to do, but let's just start with those, okay?Instead, hold eye contact with a loving, sincere gaze. I don't mean stiff and staring, like two cats in a staring contest that's not comfortable, but do hold eye contact with gentleness and with love.And you know, when you're feeling love and compassion, it comes out of your eyes like a beam of white light. I don't know how. I don't know how it works, but the energy of listening and caring is transmitted. So hold eye contact is one thing.The next thing to do is breathe. We have mirror neurons, and that's why when somebody yawns, we yawn too. Sometimes when people sneeze, we sneeze too. Mirror neurons do that. We.We unconsciously mirror the person that we're with. One other way that you can bring peace, transparency, and deep communication is to pay attention to your breathing.And if you breathe at a regulated, easy cadence, they will follow you. Their mirror neurons will kick in, and they will breathe in a more relaxed, open and communicative way. A third thing is to stay curious.People ask me often, how do you direct the conversation so well? How do you know what to say? I don't, but I can always, 100% of the time, never. Not true.Ask questions, not stupid ones, ones that are relevant and related. And here's the rule, and I didn't make this up. Ask a question about whatever they said, the. The piece of it that you understood the least.I heard that somewhere in a mastermind, and I love it.Everything that someone said, you understand it to some degree, maybe not at all, or maybe 95%, 100%, 80%, you know, the things you understand the least. Ask a question about that. Yeah, I got that. I appreciate that. There was one part that I wasn't quite sure, and could you tell me more?So just remember, it's easy to ask questions if you say, well, what do I understand the least? So maintain eye contact, breathe and ask questions. Stay curious.Now, there's more to staying curious than asking questions, because you can be bored out of your skull and perfunctorily, there's a big long word. Ask questions that are meaningless. But if you stay curious, genuinely, and again, this is something you develop through practice. Stay curious. Really.Tell me more about that. What was the hardest part? What was good about that? Why did that matter so much? Give me some more detail on how that happened.Like, you can learn to do that really well. Now, here's the thing.As we wind this up, I'm going to give you some general questions because this whole episode's been about learning the greatest skill you can have, and that's to listen. Ask yourself, what are they really saying? All of us have to choose words to try to match the feeling and expression, and we can't.There are words that are not exactly that. So listening powerfully enough and occupying your mind with what are they really saying? Is way more about understanding intent than.Than decoding words. So decode the intent. The next question is, what are they not saying? Is that's actually the bulk.I don't care how much they talk, the bulk of the intent remains unspoken. The third thing is what are they feeling? What are they saying? What are they not saying? What are they feeling? Like, what is going on?Are they happy, nervous, excited, angry? Like, what are they feeling? Because that will help you frame and understand what's being said and not said, not said. If you master listening.Now, here's the promise about creating your ultimate life. You will become unforgettable. It's an experience that people don't have.If you listen powerfully, like we've talked about today, you'll become unforgettable. Now I want you to remember this was a can be a game changer for your life, your business for your life, for loving yourself and loving others.And we create our lives one thought at a time, one exercise at a time, one new kind of listening conversation at a time, one interaction at a time. So choose. Choose to love, choose to listen and pick the elements that we've talked about today and and remember to implement them.And if you forget, remember again. Review this episode a couple of times. Now some invitations.If you want to learn to express yourself in in speeches and in talks or podcasts, dream buildwriteit.com go there. Sign up for the next challenge. If you want to tell your story and share what you have to the world, we're a top above a top 3% in the world podcast.Go to YourUltimateLifePodcast.com that URL right there. There's a contact form and let's talk. If you want some help with some challenge you're having YourUltimateLifePodcast.com use the contact form.There's no doubt if you master listening, you will be unstoppable, unforgettable, and absolutely able to create wealth at any level you choose. Impact beyond what you can imagine and meaning for your life. In other words, you'll be able to live your ultimate life.Right here, right here, right now. Your opportunity for massive growth is right in front of you. Every episode gives you practical tips and practices that will change everything.If you want to know more, go to kellenfluermedia.com if you want more free tools, go here. YourUltimate Life ca Subscribe. Sky and your feet on the ground.