How to Deal With Difficult People Without Losing Yourself  🔗 **Source:** [How to Deal With Difficult People Without Losing Yourself](https://share.snipd.com/episode/5243d418-6378-42ce-b187-33b93e5f7ee9) ## Highlights - **You Choose Your Emotional Home** - You choose whether to enter someone else's emotional home and be dragged into their anger or stay in your own calm state. - Ed Mylett illustrates the metaphor of 'emotional homes' with vivid scenes of snakes, fires, and storms to show long-term costs of living in someone's chaos. Transcript: Ed Mylett Let me ask you a question. If you and I met, or you met the person in your life who you wanted to spend the rest of your life with, let's just say, but they said, well, here's the thing. We got to live in my house. And you go, okay. All right. They said, let me just tell you about my house. My house, regularly there's snakes all over it. You got to avoid them. There's a fire that pops up in a room randomly every couple weeks. So there's fire in this house all the time. It rains in there. It gets really hot some days and other days it gets freezing cold. Sometimes it feels like you're in an earthquake. The whole house is shaking. You think it's going to come down all around you. Then there's other times in this house where it's like a tornado blows through it. You don't know where it came from, but it just hits the house and wrecks it. And we're going to live in that house the rest of our lives. So I know you love me, but you need to know the house we're going to live in. And it gets worse than that. From time to time, you don't even know what's going on. You can't read it at all. There's no detection. And out of the blue, another storm hits, another fire hits, another snake pops up. Then you walk into the wrong room and there's lions and tigers and bears that just attack you. And so it's coming from all angles a lot of the time. Would you rethink that relationship or whether you wanted to live in that house? Maybe you love the person. You said the house part, that part I'm not buying into. Maybe it wasn't even a significant other. It was just a great friend who said, when you come visit me, you know, you won't know when, but when you come to my house, this is what takes place there. You probably rethink that friendship, wouldn't you? You would not accept those terms in a long-term relationship or in a friendship. Yet we do this all the time with the people around us. Let me say something to you. A truly emotionally mature person does not allow another human to pull them into their pit of anger, hurt, and angst. But people do it all the time. I want you to evaluate whether you're emotionally mature. I only know this is true because I've allowed this to happen to me far too many times, where how somebody else acts pulls me into their pit of anger, fear, angst. Then you find yourself with these people. Because by the way, people, humans, have an emotional home, don't they? I've talked about this in my book, The Power of One More. You have an emotional home, as does every human being you meet. Your default emotion is bliss, joy, ecstasy, passion, peace, laughter. If you're in those emotions, most of the time, there'll be times when you're not at home and you visit other places and you will feel anger or fear or sadness or scarcity. But everyone has an emotional home. And if you love somebody, but their emotional home, in other words, the home they're going to have you live in with them because you live in that home with them is anger, fear, anxiety, Depression, frustration, angst, scarcity. You know what I'm talking about? You've chosen to live in that home with this person for the rest of your life. And an emotionally immature person allows when someone goes to their home of anger, angst, and frustration, they go there with them. And they try to win a conversation. You ever be in a conversation with somebody where they get angry, so you get angrier. They put you down, so you come back with something about them. They bring up something from your past, so you bring up two things from their past. And it ends up being this emotional immaturity pit that you end up in. You know exactly what I'm talking about. That is no way to live your life. Yet, so many times in our life, these people, this stimulus, if we're emotionally immature, we go there with them, with this immature person, and we end up being more immature than they Are. And so if the quality of your life is in fact the quality of your emotions, this may be one of the most important episodes you ever listened to. I want you to begin to think about yourself and evaluate yourself in terms of your emotional maturity. I know I'm doing this as I speak to you. Remember, I only know this because I've allowed this to happen to me far too many times myself. So you don't evaluate two things. A, your own responses when these people begin to behave this way, which is more often than not, isn't it, for some people. And B, their proximity to you and whether you really would live in that house if you knew that was the house, even if you like or love them. Because here's the truth. You choose your response, your reaction, or the lack thereof. You don't win by getting more angry, more reckless, and more out of control with somebody. ([Time 0:02:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2a971e0e-cb8e-4b04-9c9c-b67c19167834)) - **Rise Above Their Low Emotions** - When someone goes low emotionally, rise above by staying quiet, kind, and composed instead of matching their anger. - Ed says kindness frustrates angry people more than retaliation and preserves your health and goals. Transcript: Ed Mylett You rise above, you disconnect, you become an observer of what's taking place. When they get loud, you get quiet. When they get mean, you get kind. When they get hurtful, you get loving. And these are a choice. These are choices that we make in our life. You're choosing to get angry with them. You're choosing to race them to the bottom of the emotional game. Nobody wins when you do it. Nobody feels better after. You know what it else is? It's spiritual immaturity. What if you would begin to act as God would want you to, not the enemy? Here's what I think. If you believe in that, which I do, the enemy is the one going, now you get more angry. Now you put them down again. Now you bring up something from the past. Now you get immature. Now you be the victim. Now you retaliate. Now you be passive aggressive. And all of a sudden you're in this out of control spiral and you got to ask yourself, how many minutes of your life do you want to spend in this spiral of emotional immaturity? How much time do you want to live in your emotional home of angst, anger, frustration, sadness, anxiety? You know what I mean? Like you get wound up about stuff in life. But what if you decided to start to act as God would want you to? What if you began to surrender winning the argument with this poor person? I've started to feel empathy for people in my life who are around me, friends or otherwise, who begin to behave in this way. And you get into patterns in your relationships with people that are so unhealthy, so dangerous. This could be at work. Maybe it's somebody at work that pushes your buttons. You know what I'm talking about, right? You are best to rise above, disengage, and act as God would want you to. If you believe in this, and I also believe in this, you stay at a high vibrational frequency when they start to go low. When they start to reduce the frequency of all these negative things and emotions and put downs or whatever they do to you, you stay in the high emotional frequency. By the way, nothing, nothing will frustrate them more than you doing that. Nothing frustrates an angry person more than when you come back with kindness. They're trying to pull you into this race to the bottom. ([Time 0:08:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4ebc3ec4-a2fc-4644-a941-919a4cf72efe)) - **Have The Hard Conversation After Cooling Off** - After emotions cool, have the hard conversation and set boundaries: tell them their behavior is unacceptable and you will not participate. - Ed recommends empathy for their pain but firm limits like 'I will not live like this.' Transcript: Ed Mylett But more importantly, they refuse to have difficult conversations. See, at some point, once the emotions go away, you need to be able to step back with that person when they've calmed down and you've helped them calm down and say, this is not acceptable. I will not live like this. I won't join you in this home you live in. And I have empathy for the fact that you live in this home, but you're not pulling me in it anymore. This is not how I speak to people. It's not how I treat people. And it's certainly not how I'm going to be spoken to or treated. This is unacceptable. You do that after the emotions have calmed down. ([Time 0:19:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/06de6159-5ce5-4a81-a143-d0ab88c14d97)) - **Be Unpushable Around Dominant People** - Don't compete with domineering people; instead be unpushable and use brief responses like 'noted' or 'I got it' to avoid feeding their insecurity. - Jefferson Fisher notes quiet confidence often commands rooms more than loud insecurity. Transcript: Jefferson Fisher Let's split the dynamic, too. Let's say if it's one-on much harder because this person has constructed their whole identity, most likely, to this facade. If it is, let's say you're in a meeting and that person's trying to establish the pecking order, the other people will change the dynamic for you. You don't have to push back. You just can't be pushed over. Let's say one-on with this conversation with somebody who feels like they're more dominant. Biggest thing you're going to do is just not be pushed over, meaning you're not going to continue to chase everything that they say. You're not going to push back because they're looking for that threat. We call it water off a duck's back, where anything that somebody says, you can just say, okay, noted. I got it. No, if I have any questions, I'll ask. This ability to kind of be in the pocket in your communication. The temptation is we want to compete with them. Oh, you just went skydiving? Oh, that's great. I just went twice. Oh, you know, Ed, it's great. Yeah, you need to... And they start to compete with one another of how many names they can drop, uh, how many experiences they can share. But all that does is show more and tells more about their insecurity than it does really about any kind of true substance. Let's say, let's just use the word alphas or the people that are very confident in the communication, the conversation typically say much less. You've been in those meetings where the person who always has their two cents, the person who always has something to say, is the person most likely the least removed from the actual True conversation of what's happening. They have to tell you so much so that you can know how smart they are. The real top dog is the person that's the most quiet. And when that person speaks, everybody's quiet and everybody listens. So insecurities are very loud. ([Time 0:39:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/533a167d-5359-4047-8751-146f292d488b)) - **Exact Phrases To Defuse Passive Aggression** - Use short questions to call out passive aggression: ask 'Should I read into that?' or 'Sounds like there's more to that.' - For ruder comments begin with 'Did you mean...' to give grace and expose intent quickly. Transcript: Jefferson Fisher So one, let's say, is kind of this more just passive aggressive bucket. The other is let's ramp it up to somebody being a little bit more overtly disrespectful or rude. So in this first bucket, this passive aggressive, these are people that most likely just have grown up that way. This is what they saw, mirrored conversation and arguments throughout their life. And they don't know how to express that kind of thing. So when they slide in that negative comment that you know there's something to that, a simple question of like, should I read into that or is there more to that? Or, and this goes for Chris Foss, a dear friend, and I love his question is, sounds like you have a reason for saying that. I love that phrase. I also love, sounds like there's more to that. So anytime you can just quickly ask, sounds like there's more to that, or ask them, should I read into that? That tends to draw out the passive aggressiveness because they're not expecting you to kind of call them to the floor. On the flip side, if somebody is saying more aggressive things towards you, my recommendation is begin your question with, did you mean? Did you mean for that to sound rude? Did you say that to embarrass me? Did you say that to hurt my feelings? Did you say that to offend me? When you say, did you mean? It is twofold. One is giving them the grace of perhaps they said it in a way they did not mean, and it's going to allow them to fix it. Like, uh, at least with me and my wife, if we're texting and something seems like it's off instead of it saying, you know, why are you being so short? What's wrong? Yeah. Ed Mylett Yeah. Jefferson Fisher The question asked the question, did you mean for that to sound short? Instantly, almost every time, but my, you know, it is like the, Oh no, no, no, no, sorry. I'm picking up the kids or I, you know, I was checking out the grocery store, I'm getting gas. You know, you, you get that, that K or okay. And you're like, oh, okay. I guess, I guess they hate me right now. All right. Like, I guess they're in a mood. And then you naturally get in a mood and then you respond defensively, which causes them to respond offensively. And now you're convinced, you've convinced yourself you're under attack. So it's this, um, this feedback loop that's not helpful to you. So when you begin with, did you mean, it's a great way to set somebody to want to give them that grace of fixing it. But two, it's calling attention to what they were wanting to do. Did you say that to embarrass me? Did you say that to offend me? Or did you mean for that to sound rude? ([Time 0:44:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fe30eb9f-e7ea-4071-9b89-b74deb41056a)) - **Ask What They Actually Heard** - When someone accuses you of saying something, slow down and ask 'What did you hear?' instead of defending your intent. - Jefferson Fisher recommends then say 'I can see how you'd feel that way' to reduce heat and show perspective-taking. Transcript: Jefferson Fisher So instead of this, that's not what I said, um, you are going to ask the question, what did you hear? What did you hear? Because now it's not about what I am putting out. I am now getting curious of what you heard, because that's what matters. Anytime you had that kind of confrontation or that miscommunication, instead of going, no, no, no, that's not what, that's not what I said, and kind of dismissing their whole experience Or their perspective. By the way, it's very hard to the judge. It's like making your own movie, but not having an audience and going, no, no, that's not how the movie goes. It's like nobody else has seen it. Only you're the one who thinks it's that way. So when you ask the question, what did you hear? And they explain it. That's when you say that was not my intent, or I apologize for that impression. Or I would recommend is begin your sentence with, I can see. I can see how you'd feel that way. I can see how that come off. You know, whenever you say, you know, I can see why you'd feel that way. I can see why that would upset you. That I can see just says, hey, I took a second to walk over to where you're standing. And I turned to look the same way that you're looking. And I can confirm, yeah, what you see is reasonable. What you see is justified. ([Time 0:48:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c0d93762-2b0f-41e2-82f9-069043c33e1e)) - **Open Hands With Four Conversational Questions** - Conversations mix facts, opinions, and emotions and improving dialogue begins by separating them and asking archetypal questions like 'What am I worried about?' and 'What do I want?' - Chuck Weisner frames four conversational questions that open hands instead of fists, enabling curiosity over attack. Transcript: Chuck Weisner And it's also important to know that when you're in a difficult conversation, both parties have to be to start with truth. And if we can't have a foundation of truth, then you're going to have a very, the conversation will remain difficult. There's opinions and there's facts and there's emotions. And we get all of those mixed up, right? And they all get discombobled and jumbled up in our brain. But if we realize that my opinion is just my opinion, and it's not the truth, then we can slowly, we can say, okay, what's driving my opinion? And we sort of can open our hand and go, this is why I'm thinking how I'm thinking. This is what my standards are. There's four archetypal questions in the book. This is what I'm worried about. This is my concern. Here's what I'd like. We can start to just open our hands and say, okay, I have an opinion. Let's dance with that. Let's see what we can learn from each other. That's a very different conversation with fists and fists coming at each other. Ed Mylett In the book that I've learned to do this myself is to fall in love with asking questions. Right. You're talking with somebody, whether you're a business leader and trying to create change in your company or whether you're in an argument with a spouse or disagreement or you got To talk about something different like I've used. I've used politics as an example because it's the big one. Right. Right. Like they're good. I'm right. You're wrong. And the idea of making statements all the time and telling stories as opposed to asking questions. Chuck Weisner Right, right. And the idea of whether I'm doing it to myself and asking myself what's driving my opinion, what's driving my judgment, and why am I so hooked on the thing, right? We can also, the questions help us, like each question help us open someone else's hand. ([Time 0:52:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2a9b7c4a-87f3-4d7e-a819-e72028431695)) - **Welfare Debate Changed By A Personal Story** - Ed forced a left-leaning friend to tell his welfare story, which transformed a heated policy debate into empathy and reduced judgment. - The friend's childhood on welfare became the pivot that made the right-leaning listener understand his passion. Transcript: Ed Mylett And so because of your work, I'm like, wait a minute. And the one guy that was for welfare, I said, I said, John, I said, brother, really? What's the story? Like, why are you so passionate about that welfare should exist? Right. God wanted to build a bridge between these dudes. And anyway, John, who, by the way, you resemble John visually. John says he's a really strong, masculine guy. And he goes, well, man, you guys don't know this, but I was on welfare. I was a little boy. And it saved my family. And there was a time where, as a little boy, I was actually with my mother on the street begging for money so we could eat. And it was a horrible existence. And I was a scared little boy, and it was traumatic for me. And thank God, my mother got on welfare. And you know what, my mother stayed on welfare for quite a while. And my mom didn't really turn her life around, but I did. And now I'm a major league tax player. And I know you, buddy, over there on the right side, like all the taxes I'm paying, but you don't know what it's like not to have food. You don't. And I watched him tell the story and I had to force it and ([Time 0:59:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/02f23d8f-6ec2-44c7-9238-a23fc0f3d1c7)) - **Loop For Understanding And Control The Fight** - In conflict use 'looping for understanding': ask, repeat back what you heard, and ask if you got it right to remove mistrust. - Charles Duhigg adds control the fight by agreeing on timing, self-control, and topic boundaries to avoid kitchen-sinking. Transcript: Charles Duhigg The first one is, I mentioned this looping for understanding, right? Asking a question, repeating back what you heard, and then asking if you got it right. That's enormously powerful in conflict. Because the first thing, the first suspicion I have, if you disagree with me and we're in conflict with each other, is you're waiting your turn to speak. You're not hearing what I'm saying, right? You're just waiting there. And like, I'm going to tell you my piece and then you're going to just bulldoze over me and I'm going to bulldoze back. So if you interrupt that by proving you are listening, using looping for understanding to prove, I really want to understand what you're saying. Help me understand. I'm taking a huge amount of mistrust off the table. The second thing that often happens in conflict, and this happens a lot in marriages, this actually comes from marriage therapy and studies of marriage therapy, is that it is natural When we feel threatened to want to control things. And the easiest thing to control is the other person. So you tell me your thing and I'm like, no, no, no, you don't know the evidence. Let me show you the evidence. You say something and you're like, I'm not even going to listen to this. I try and control you. I try and tell you what you should believe, what you should feel. That's toxic, right? In a marriage, that is the thing that destroys marriage. The alternative is I have a need for control. You have a need for control. We feel threatened. Can we find things to control together? So for instance, can we control the timing of this fight instead of having it at two in the morning? Can we wait till it's 10 AM and we're both a little bit more rested? Can we control ourselves? Can I let you know, I'm going to take a second before I speak and I'm going to think about what you just said. Can I show you that I'm trying to control myself and invite you to control yourself? And the third thing is we can control the boundaries of the conflict itself. So one of the most toxic patterns in marriages is this thing called kitchen sinking, where we start arguing about like where we're going to go for New Year's, and then five minutes later It's like, and your mother hates me and you don't earn enough money, and why are you such a jerk all the time? So a fight about one thing becomes a fight about everything. The healthy way to do that is to say we need to have a fight. We have a disagreement on something. Let's control the boundaries of it. We're talking about New Year's Eve. If my mother comes up and your money comes up, like we're just going to set it aside. That's another conversation another day. But then when we're controlling these three things, we're controlling, we're controlling ourselves, we're controlling the conversation, the environment, and we're controlling The boundaries of the fight or the conflict. ([Time 1:03:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c3819f95-b995-4aa8-9772-814bcdfadcb2)) - **Intention Determines Conversation Value** - Emmanuel Acho says changing your mind may cost 'tribal' approval but not changing when you're informed disrespects your intellect. - He uses Oprah's question 'What is your intention?' as the litmus test for whether to continue or end a conversation. Transcript: Emmanuel Acho Well said. I see it a lot. The reason I do not struggle with that is because I believe that maintaining an ignorant opinion is to disrespect your own intellect. I would rather disrespect my quote unquote tribe if my tribe is being ignorant than disrespect my own intellect if I have now unlocked the aperture of my mind to a new way, to a better way, To a more righteous way, to a more honest way, to a more just way. There is a lot of peer pressure to maintaining ignorance, but how can I maintain ignorance? I believe it was Maya Angelou who said, to know better is to do better. Once you know better, do better. When do you know if you should disengage from a conversation? I disengage from conversations when I realize the intention of the other person isn't actually to draw a conclusion. One of my favorite questions to ever ask anybody in life, and it came from Oprah. After I recorded my second episode of Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, I sat down with Matthew McConaughey. He called me from a no-caller ID number. This is a true story, ladies and gentlemen. McConaughey says, hey, I want to sit down with you for your second episode of Uncomfortable Conversations. Mind you, I was producing it myself, Ed. I rented out a studio space in Austin by myself. I was not yet a mainstay television personality. I literally hired a wedding videographer because I had no video team. I found a friend who shot weddings. I said, please stand in, shoot this for me. McConaughey watches the first episode. It had been seen by 25 million people in five days. And he says, hey, I want to have a conversation. I do not know to this day how he got my number. Me and Matthew McConaughey, we sit down for a conversation. Five days later, after that conversation airs, I get a call from another no-call or ID number. I pick it up. Hi, Emmanuel, Oprah Winfrey speaking. I say, Oprah, she says, yeah, are you free to FaceTime later today? I FaceTimed her later that afternoon. Again, true story, ladies and gentlemen. She asked me one simple question, Ed, one very simple question, and I live by this. This brings this conversation full circle. She said, Emmanuel, is your intention? I said, Oprah, my intention is to change the world. And I truly believe I can. I said, I'm currently working on writing a book. She said, books, I love books. And that's why Oprah and I partnered together to write the first several of the Uncomfortable Conversation series. Now, bringing this full circle to answer your question. What is the intention of the person I'm talking to? That is how I know when to end a conversation. If the intention of the person is a gotcha moment, I'm out. What do I mean by gotcha moment? Let's speak plainly. If the person just wants to try to, figuratively speaking, dunk on me, if the intention of the person is to be like, boom, I got a manual, I'm out. If the intention of the person is not reconciliation, I'm out. If the intention of the person is not to hear what I have to say while simultaneously allowing me to hear what they have to say, I'm out. ([Time 1:10:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8a9cf978-9a33-4357-b82a-bd40f19b6e17)) - **Talk Less And Ask More To Be Liked** - Be a better listener: ask more questions, speak less, and avoid 'raising your hand' mentally while others talk. - Ed Mylett stresses the payoff: people like you more, you learn more, and listening removes performance pressure. Transcript: Ed Mylett We talk a lot on this program about communication. And one of the things we've not covered that is such a critical part of communication, and maybe more important than even what you say, is your ability to listen to people. It's a huge part of communication. You know, I've taught you before that people don't respond to what they hear or see. They respond to how they feel when they interact with you. And one of the best ways to make somebody feel good is that they feel listened to and that they feel heard. And it's one of the skills that I struggle with the most, which is why I'm so excited to cover this with you today, because quite frankly, it's something that I've struggled with myself Is my ability to just be present and to listen to people. And so like many of the shows, I'm excited to teach these things to you for your own benefit, but it also helps me in owning this material. And frankly, anything you teach to people, you end up owning more yourself. And so very, very excited to cover this with you here today. And like I said, it's not something I've been very good at my entire life as being a great listener, so I want to get right into it. And what caused me to do the show today is really two things. I had someone join me on my jet a few weeks ago on a pretty long flight, and there was a group of people, but one particular guy who's an entrepreneur, and I won't say who he is, he spent a three-hour Flight with me on my jet so he spent about three hours with me about a foot and a half from me and for three straight hours he did not ask me one question about myself he did not listen to one Thing I had to say didn't ask me for any advice and he talked about himself for three hours this is somebody prior to that flight that I really liked. I was struck and so were other people in the flight than when they landed. And I don't mean that I'm a big deal or anything like that, but they were shocked why a rising entrepreneur wouldn't take advantage of the time of being with me to ask me questions. I think most of you, if we spent three hours together, you'd probably want to ask me a question or two. And he did not ask me one single question. And he talked about himself and his life and his background and what he had achieved and what he was going to achieve and what he was good at and all those things. And it was probably true, but I found myself when the flight was over, quite honestly, not liking him quite as much as I did before the flight, because people don't like to hear about you All the time. People want to feel heard. They want to feel listened to and he didn't do any of that the entire flight plus the fact he didn't learn anything that flight. So remember this, I know there's the old adage that you have two eyes and two ears and one mouth for a reason and you ought to use them in that ratio but really you should even use the you should Use your mouth even less. And so the two things happen on that flight, one he didn't get anything out of it, he didn't learn anything and two it made the people around him frankly, not care for him to the extent they Could have because he's a really good guy. But he just talked the entire time. And I don't think he did it out of ego. I think he did it because he was nervous. And so that's one thing I want you to check in the very beginning. When you get nervous, I do. When you get nervous, do you begin to talk more? One of the great things about my show is that I've had to learn to listen more. And people say all the time, one of the reasons they like my show is I seem so excited and so interested in what people are saying because I sincerely am. I've learned that being a great listener is easier than being a great talker. Because being a great listener, the pressure is off you to come up with the perfect thing to say, right? The perfect response, the perfect phrase that sounds smarter or better than somebody. You don't have to do that when you're a great listener. And people's favorite topic, number one, remember this, people's favorite topic is themselves. They love to talk about themselves. One of the things I've found over and over in my life, and my friends get a kick out of this, but when I play golf, you know, you'll spend four or five hours with somebody when you're on a golf Course. And oftentimes my friends will tell me, man, Dave really liked you, Ed. Like he really enjoyed the time with you, Eddie, so much. But he doesn't know anything about you. And one of the reasons they like me so much is I don't talk about myself. I love to talk about them. I love to ask questions about them. And so it's interesting when we're done, they really, really like me and they know nothing about me. And they wonder why they like me. But the reason they like me is I allowed them to talk about themselves. Plus the fact, the way I look at life, I already know about me. I'm not going to learn anything else by talking about myself. I'm going to learn by asking them questions about them. And so I think being a great listener has lots of benefits. One, people will like you more. Two, you're going to learn more. Three, it takes the pressure off you. And so listening skills are so critical. And even as we cover this, you may say, I'm a great listener. Well, let's go through some things and see how good we all are. Because even on my show, I'll be honest with you, I watch replays back of my show and I interrupt too much. I jump in too much. I finish people's sentences for them too often. And that's an ego thing. Almost like I think I can say it better than them. In fact, I'm so bad at it. I'll be honest with you. Before every show, I tell them, hey, this isn't like any other interview you've been on before. I'm going to interrupt you. You can interrupt me. We'll make it like a real conversation. And all of my guests always politely say, wonderful, that's great. I want you to cut me off. But the truth is, that's not how a great conversation goes. ([Time 1:16:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2522ed86-b630-4039-88ed-b3a6d1c386a3)) - **Use Clarifying Phrases And Match Body Language** - Use clarifying phrases like 'So what I'm hearing is...' and avoid verbal nudges or finishing sentences to prove deep listening. - Ed gives body language tips: eye contact, matching facial expression, leaning in, and appropriate touch to anchor connection. Transcript: Ed Mylett And what I'm hearing is, by the way, when you say the sentence to somebody, so what I'm hearing is, that lets them know you were hearing them, that you were listening to them. So as I was listening to you, this is what I understood. Help me understand. Clarify for me, because this gives a deeper sense you were listening to somebody. The next thing is what I'm doing right now with you. Make eye contact. Look right at them when you're talking to them. Don't be distracted. Don't look around. Don't look at your phone. The way you tell me I'm important is by looking at me. I have a significant person in my life, and one of the things that drives me crazy is I'm always saying, are you listening to me? And she's always like, yes, of course I'm listening to you. And I'm like, well, could you look at me and let me know you're listening to me? I'm not going to say who that is either. But we all have that person in our life who they're listening, but they don't know to let us know they're listening. One of the best ways you can do that is by just looking right at somebody, nodding with them when they say something you agree with, right? Smiling when it's funny, like giving a normal response and you'd say, well, this is basic stuff. You'd be surprised how often you look away, how often you're not focused. The next thing is check your body language. Are you leaning in? Are you welcoming? Are you warm? Or are your arms crossed when you're talking to somebody? See, I have this tendency when I'm really listening, I get really drawn in. One of the things I do is I get very serious. And I almost begin to grimace and make a face because I'm so interested. I'm in deep thought. But what happens is my visual on my face doesn't indicate to them that I'm enjoying what they're saying or that I'm listening very deeply. So make sure that your facial expression, this may seem basic, but your facial expression matches the moment, matches the emotion. Some other people do something different. They're always smiling when something very serious is being said. That's not an appropriate facial expression. And it looks like you're not listening or it disconnects the connection, if you will, no pun intended, between you and that person. So check your facial expressions. Make sure you're looking at them. Check your physiology and your body language. The next thing is that when someone's talking, the highest form of listening is to let them finish their sentence. Do not interrupt them. Do not interrupt them. I do this all the time when I get excited. Oh, really? Almost like I want to jump in and get my point in before they're finished, or I want to sound smarter, or if I don't say it now, I'm going to forget to say it. Probably the number one weakness in my ability in listening to people is my desire and tendency to jump in before they finish their thought. And what that says is my thoughts more important than yours. My needs are more important than you. ([Time 1:22:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cea2c4ec-5c34-4126-8d4b-1c24208c855b)) - **Match Words And Tonality To Build Rapport** - Match and mirror a speaker's words, pace, tonality, and a few signature words to build rapport and influence. - Ed explains picking up a person's 'go-to' words and using one or two back creates immediate connection. Transcript: Ed Mylett So when I talk back with somebody, I listen for their tonality. I listen to the volume of their voice, the pace of their voice, how they speak. I begin to try to match by listening to them, the words they use, the tonality they use, and the volume they use. If they use a certain set of words from time to time, if you were listening closely, if you then use some of those same words back to them, you connect. So this is a form of influence. If this person sort of repeatedly used the words literally, literally, literally, you've heard that word three or four times. When I'm then going to be saying my stuff back then to influence them, I'm going to use the word literally. This is a connection word. It's part of the words they love. When I use words they love, I can influence them. This is a huge thing in influence, in closing, in moving people to make decisions that are best for themselves. If they talk at a pace like this, just like I'm talking at this pace right now, and I'm talking like this very fast, I break connection and we can't have rapport. So I want to listen for the pace that they speak at, the cadence, also the tonality. You know, they talk kind of hunched over and quiet. I want to talk like that and a little bit better. If they talk at a certain volume, if they talk like this, I don't want to talk like this. At the same time, if they talk like this, I don't want to talk like this. I wasn't listening for their volume level. We want to match their volume level. And so when you begin to match and mirror like this, use the words they use, just a few of them, don't overcook it. But when they've got three or four words they use and use one or two of those words, I can promise you, you connect. When you speak at a similar pace to them in tonality, you connect. When you speak at a similar volume to them, you connect. If there are hand gestures as I'm listening and observing them, they use. If they're constantly folding their hands like this. If you're on audio, I'm folding my hands right now. They pray or they have their hands down or they do some sort of a gesture with their hands or shoulders. I will oftentimes, I'm watching, this isn't manipulation, this is connecting with people, I'm listening so closely I can see their physical moves as well. If there's emotions I hear them go to often, which is regret or sadness, let's just say. They keep telling me stories about things they regret or they're sad of, I will share with them one of the things I regret and bring them with me. If they talk about past achievements or they talk about material things, then I'll talk about some material things or past achievements. I'm listening for them to give me the language, the words, the tonality that I can move them with. And this is also true in every area, but particularly in influence when we're trying to persuade people. So the reason this is so important is people have go-to words. And so if you're really listening closely, not only are you connecting better with me, but they will tell you the three or four words they use a lot. Every human being does this, by the way. You do it too. You have a few words you use more than most. And if someone's really listening closely, they can hear what those words are. And if I use one or two of those words back with you, I've connected with you on a deeper level. The next thing that's huge, by the way, in listening is to repeat back to them what you believe they've just said. Repeat back to them what you've heard. This is what I've heard. This is what I'm hearing. ([Time 1:33:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1c607a87-1d60-4348-9393-8f7c8f813c15))