 Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host Rob Dylan. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you love this podcast, please do me a favor, give us a rating and review however you listen to us. It allows more people to find this podcast and be able to hopefully grow from listening to it as well. So if you would do that, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it. Today, I'm going to teach you three keys to mastering your communication. This might be one of the most important skills that you can learn to have a real lasting connection with other people and to build up your communication skills. And the key part of it is love, but it's not the love that you're actually thinking. And so, you know, we've all heard communication is a number one skill and key to any relationship. And I use the word skill on purpose is because communication is not something that you're just born with. I've never seen a baby that's immediately speaking as soon as they come out of the womb. I don't know about you guys. It is a skill set to be able to speak, to be able to understand, to be able to communicate effectively is a skill. It is something that every single person can improve it. So if you're sitting there listening, you're like, well, I'm just an introvert. I'm just really shy. Yeah, well, me too. I am. But over years and years and years, I've learned how to be shy and how to be an introvert, but also be able to communicate effectively when I need to. It is a skill set. Just like if you want to learn how to play basketball, if you just keep showing up and doing the right things in basketball, you'll get better at it. Same thing with communication. If you want to learn how to be a better communicator, as long as you just show up and you continue to do the right things, you will improve at your communication. And so, you know, we've all heard that communication is the number one key to any relationship. It's the key to your romantic relationships. For sure. One of the biggest problems, if not the biggest problem in all romantic relationships is lack of communication. As people just do not communicate with each other, not communicating how they're feeling. Their spouse will do something and then they'll just brush it under the rug and then it builds up and it builds up and it builds up and it builds up and it builds up and then they forget to wash a fork and it turns into an absolute explosion. The person's like, I don't know. I just didn't do this. I didn't put the fork away. It wasn't about the fork. It was about everything that happened before, but they don't know that because it wasn't communicated effectively to them. That's a piece of it. It's holding, withholding the communication. That's a big piece of it. Another big piece of that communication is, well, it might not be withholding the communication. It might be just actually maybe something happens and you just have a trigger from when you were younger and you just explode over one thing that happened. It's just these little nuances that start to figure out how to improve the communication. It's the number one piece of relationships with romantic relationships, with friendships, with your family, with children that you do or will eventually have. If any other human that is breathing, if they can fog a cup, what I'm going to teach you today will deepen your connection. Really communication, like I said, is a skill. So what we're going to talk about is this skill of communicating. And when you're listening and talking to somebody, remembering this very simple acronym, which is L U V. So when I said it, it's based in love, not L O V E L U V is what we're going to talk about. And this comes from a PhD. Her name's Carol Comfort. Comfort. I think it's say it K U M P F E R. And this is what it is L U V. So the L stands for listen. It's like the phrase, you know, you know, God gave us two ears in one mouth for a reason, because we're supposed to be listening twice as much as we're talking, right? So that's a piece of it. It's listening without the need to feel like you have to respond. One of the things that we can all agree of, I'm sure is that sometimes we'll be in a conversation with somebody and you can tell when somebody is just waiting for you to shut up because they have something that they want to say. And we feel bulldozed, like there's bulldozers over in those conversations, right? The most valuable, I guess you could say the most valuable thing that you can give somebody in a conversation is your silence. Have you ever had a conversation with somebody? Think about this. I know I have. You have a conversation with somebody and they're just talking and you're barely saying anything. Maybe asking a couple of questions you talk to them for a little while. And then at the end, they're just like, they have energy and they're so much more excited. And they're like, you know what? Thank you so much. This is a great conversation. And you're like, yeah, of course. And then they walk away and you're like, the hell I didn't even say anything. Like I barely even spoke. But that person thought it was an amazing conversation. Why? Because you just gave space for that human to express. And one of the things that I know is that very few people get their full expression of themselves out the way that they should. And so it's to listen and to listen without judgment. Now let's talk about that without judgment. This is really hard nowadays. And there's one thing that I've noticed over the past few years that people are just judging people for freaking everything. God knows what every single thing what they do, what they say, what they don't do, what they believe, what they don't believe, or what they think about politics, what they don't think about. Every single thing in the idea is how can you listen without judgment? You could talk to somebody and they could have a completely different view of the world, completely different view of the world. How can you listen to them without judgment? And I am of the belief that if I would have been born in their shoes and had every single second of my life be exactly the same way that theirs was, who raised me every life experience, the good, the bad, the family, all of those things. If I were to have their exact same life experience, if they're 36 years old, if I were to be born as them and have every single life experience at every single second, I believe that I would be the exact same person as them. There's nature and there's nurture and both of those things make up the human that is in front of you. And so can you get better at listening without judgment? And also, can you get better at listening without feeling like you have to fix? And as a guy and somebody who literally gets paid professionally to help coach people, this is really hard for me. And for most guys, also a lot of women, this is really hard as well, to listen to somebody who's going through things and listen and then just shut up. That's really hard to do. Don't try to fix. We don't need a problem solver, but to literally just listening, listen to them. Listening is a skill. One of the things that really deepened my listening practice was something that one of my very first mentors taught me and damn it. It was really awkward the first few times that I did it. And he goes, if you want to be a great communicator, when somebody stops talking, go in your head, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, and then now you have the opportunity to respond. And so what that means is when someone stops talking, don't say anything for three seconds, give it a shot. It's hard. It's awkward because we're so used to just immediately speaking over people and immediately going, but allow three seconds. And how long can you go without responding? Here's the thing that I realized once I started doing this, somebody will say something and then I'll just pause and I won't say anything for three seconds. Usually in those three seconds, they will start speaking again. And what's great about them speaking again is now they usually go deeper into what they were just saying. One of the things that I think is a tragedy nowadays is that people have, I hate surface level conversations and many people, our conversation is just surface level, surface level, first surface level. And what happens is somebody will be speaking to you, speaking to you and it can be surface level, surface level, surface level, and you allow three seconds and then they start going deeper in those three seconds because you didn't respond. And now they're going deeper than just surface level. They're able to get below the surface because they've had some space to be able to do so. And you usually start to learn about the person, understand the person and get to know them even better and they feel understood. They feel heard, which is why most people who are just speaking most of the conversation are like, man, that felt great. It's because they feel heard and people just want to feel heard and they want to feel understood. So the first piece, the L of LUV love is to listen, get better as a listener and don't feel like you always have to respond. Number two is understand. Understand is in two different categories. Number one is verbal, number two is nonverbal. And men and women tend to communicate differently in a lot of different ways. This is a vast generalization, but in most cases people usually fit in these categories, right? And I remember when I was younger, I was about 20, see I was 23, 24 years old. And my manager of the company that I was in, he was the number one developer of women in the company. Like he had more female managers than anybody else. He had more female managers than any other female manager had. He developed women really well. And I asked him because I was like, you know, what is it? What makes it different? And he said, what I do is I started paying attention to the way that men communicate versus the way that mean women communicate. And he said, just over the next month, just watch women communicate, watch two women. Don't be, no, this isn't done in a creepy way. But just if you're at a coffee shop, you see two women talking, just watch them communicating and then look at two men communicating and see if you can tell what the difference is. And when I started noticing was there was a vast difference of the way that men most of the time communicate and women communicate as well. And there was actually a study that was done in this years ago. And they had these, these children, they're about four or five years old and they were in a classroom and they put, you know, there's just a normal classroom, desks, everything like that. And they had little boys and little girls and they were talking to each other and it was before class started. And they did a study over and over and over again. And they had a big glass wall where they could see in but the children couldn't see that they were being watched. And what they noticed is that little boys tend to sit in their desk and face the front of the room where the teacher will be and they will sit shoulder to shoulder and be able to have a full conversation looking to the side, looking to the front of the room, looking to the side of each other, looking to the front of the room, but facing the same direction. And they think that that comes back to when men used to be hunting and men would go out and they would go hunting together is when you're hunting, you don't want to be necessarily always looking the same direction. But what you want to be doing is both of you guys have your eyes looking, you know, different ways of possible. So I know when I've been hunting and I go out hunting with one of my friends, we're usually back to back in that way. I can see 180 degrees, they can see 180 degrees and we basically see everything that's there. We can have a full conversation never looking at each other, right? What they noticed about little girls though is that little girls almost always turn to each other in their desk and squared up their shoulders. And so it's about understanding the way that different people communicate. And you notice how they communicate and you start to actually mimic their communication. When you, when I talk about understanding, there's a lot of reflection back to somebody. There's a lot of, you know, head nods, square up your shoulders and then give them an idea that you're listening with. Uh huh. Yes. Oh wow. And you actually talk to them and as they're talking, you just, you know, if you see me on camera right now, as you're talking, you just nod your head. You start to actually let them know that they're being heard. Oh wow. Yeah. Uh huh. Those types of things are reflecting back, making sure that you understand and reflect back to them, repeat back to them what they just said to let them know and let them show that you're understanding, that you're listening. And also sometimes when you reflect back, somebody will go a little bit deeper. And this is really an important part. This is something that I was bad at for a really long time is I would just, if you're watching on camera, if you're watching on, you know, YouTube, I would just stare at somebody as they're talking to me. And this is why a lot of times like women will be like, you're not, you never listened to me. And the guy's like, what are you talking about? I heard exactly what you said is there was no, there was no nonverbal reflection back to them that you were listening. And I was like, oh my God, now I'm starting to see all the ways that I screwed up my communication with girlfriends in the past. Right. So the second part of it is to show them through verbal and nonverbal communication that you are understanding that you are following along with exactly what is that they're doing, makes them feel once again, understood. People want to feel understood. And then the last part of the V. So it is, listen, it is understand the V is validate. Oh yeah, I completely understand. Tell me more about that. Oh really? What did you feel when that happened? Oh yeah, I see where you're coming from. It's to validate this person and their human experience. It's to validate them and not feel like you have to fix anything. It makes the person feel understood. And it makes them feel as if the conversation, you know, they make, if you go into into a conversation with somebody and they tell you something, you're trying to fix it or switch it or fix or switch it or, you know, tell them that they're wrong. They're going to close off. But when somebody feels understood and validated, they naturally open up a little bit more and they feel like they can express themselves more validate them, ask them questions. If you even if you know the answer to what you think the problem is, ask them questions and allow them to come up with it. Oh really? She said that. Well, what do you think she was feeling? Well, what do you think you should do about it? Instead of just telling people what to do, ask them and allow them to come up to it and helping that really what this does is it allows somebody so many people don't journal. You know, I talk about journaling all the time. They don't journal. They don't talk about their feelings. They don't talk about what's going on in their life and they're, they're kind of, it's all in their head and because it's all in their head, it's really mushed up. And so this allows us to be able to become really great communicators. Notice when I said communication, I didn't say, hey, this is how you become an expert communicator and this is the way that you talk and you've got to hold your shoulders up straight and you've got to be able to, you've got to be able to take your voice and project your voice. When I talk about communication, I'm not talking about standing on stage. I'm talking about a human to human connection and be able to have somebody know that when you're sitting in front of them that they are feeling understood. If you have children, try this with them. A lot of times what happens with parents is parents will try to fix their children quote unquote, fix their children. And a lot of times the child just wants to be understood. So can you get better at listening, understanding and validating your children? Even if you don't agree with it, can you see what happens? And then ask questions around it. They'll come up with the right answer eventually. I believe that intuitively everybody has the answers inside of them. Can we, as communicators, try to help them come up with their answers that are intuitively correct for inside of them? You know, a lot of people, their child does something, why did you do that? And then they yell at them. It's like, hey, why did you do that? Do you feel like that was the right thing to do? What do you think would have been better to do? How did it make you feel when she said that? And coming from a place of compassion and understanding versus trying to fix. Because there's one thing that I do know for each human, every human just wants to feel understood. And so if we can master these three aspects, the LUV, the listening, the understanding, the validation, it makes other people around us feel like we're there to support them. And the thing that I know is instead of trying to fix somebody, if we can be there and they know that they have someone like us on their side to support them, they're more likely to step into whatever is they need to do to make the changes that they want to in their life. And so that is the three pieces to being a incredible communicator. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please give me a favor, share this on your Instagram stories and tag me at Rob dial, jr, I go through all my Instagram stories that I'm tagged in and I see what you guys are doing. I don't respond to every single one of them because there's a lot, but I love to see when you guys are listening to this, you have family or listeners when you're on a run or listening to this when you're at the gym. So, hey, tag me in it. Let's chat. I want to connect to the guys more often instead of just speaking to you and speaking at you. So once again, on Instagram, it is Rob dial, jr, r o b d i a l j r. And I'm gonna leave the same way I leave every single episode, make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you. And I hope that you have an amazing day.