Active listening is used by the greatest conversationalists to get the other party to comfortably open up.
If you study the best podcast hosts like Lex Friedman and Joe Rogan, or great talk show hosts like David Letterman, you notice they all have their own unique style.
However, they also share common traits that get their guest to get comfortable and open up A LOT in a very public way.
After countless hours of studying these greats, and doing 43 podcast interviews myself, I found 3 essential traits they all have in common.
I’ll go over the trait, how it helps you with active listening, and how you can practice it on your own (to become a better listener).
The traits are:
1. Curiosity
2. Open Mindedness
3. Present in-the-moment
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**Curiosity**
Curiosity is an itch.
A desire, similar to hunger, but instead of food you crave knowledge. Curiosity is important to active listening because it helps you endlessly craft questions to keep the conversation going.
Can’t listen if there’s nothing to listen to.
The problem with most ppl listening is they lose interest *really quickly* to what the other person is saying. If you approach conversations with a curious “what can I learn from this person” mindset, you’ll have plenty to talk about.
Curiosity can be grown through something my friend invented called ***The Curiosity Game***.
The rules are simple: engage in conversation with someone for as long as you can *without* talking about yourself. You are only allowed to ask questions about the other person and comment on what they said. Easy mode is with your family and friends.
For a real challenge try this with strangers.
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**Open Mindedness**
Openmindedness is the readiness to consider something without preconceived notions.
In other words, enter a conversation with non-judgment. This is *really hard* to do because most people don’t know where their unconscious judgments lie. Curiosity helps a ton.
It’s hard to bring your judgments in when you’re unattached to the outcome of the questions.
You can tell someone is open-minded when they don’t get angry when they’re wrong. Holding onto your beliefs is a huge ego-centered thing. That’s usually where people go wrong. they believe their beliefs are the right beliefs.
Being open-minded is having your beliefs but accepting that other beliefs could be right too.
This is important when listening because a conversation could *quickly* turn into an argument when fighting for who’s right.
A fun exercise to open your open-mindedness and challenge your beliefs is to branch out of your usual genres.
Take music or movies for example. If you always “HATE” on country music or horror movies, give the genre a try.
Start with time-tested classics, it’s easier. Trust me. Try focusing in on what you *do* like about the genre (instead of why it sucks). Who knows.
Maybe you’ll be a fan
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**Present in-the-moment**
Presence in the moment is a powerful trait.
Not just for active listening, but in most things in life. What it means is to be aware of what’s going on in the here and now. Not to be sucked in your mind’s musings or playing around on your phone.
To be totally aware of where you are, how you’re feeling, and who you’re talking to.
It takes a lot of concentration and focus to build this up. How does it help to listen you ask? Great question!
How the fuck can you pay attention to another person if you’re off diddling in lala land?
Ya can’t.
Paying attention is the most important part of active listening. It’s also one of the toughest. However, there is a shortcut. You can combine curiosity and open-mindedness to be in the moment for conversations.
Here’s how:
Curiosity = genuine interest. When you’re curious about something, you tend to hone in and pay deep attention to what’s going on.
Open-mindedness = ok with wherever the conversation goes. The person could be talking about Galapagos turtles or Satanic rituals but it doesn’t matter, you don’t judge them for it. You, instead, are interested and ask more questions.
Before you know it you’re having a full-blown hour-long conversation and you soaked up every minute of it.
Some exercise for presence is, you guessed it, mindfulness meditation.
Sit down and focus on your breath.
Count 1, breathe in, **pause**, breathe out, **pause**, count 2…
For 100 breaths. Your mind will wander, but that’s ok. Bring it back to the breath.
Somewhere between #40-60 you start feeling a fantastic sense of calm and focus in the moment.
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Edit: formatting