Listening is Key

• 00:05 You can be a great public speaker, a fine orator.
• 00:09 You can have tremendous charisma and guess what, still be a lousy communicator.
• 00:15 Your communication skills can be poor because of one thing.
• 00:21 You're not listening.
• 00:24 This is a communication skills class.
• 00:26 Of course, I'll cover a lot of fundamentals and advanced steps for
• 00:30 public speaking and PowerPoint, and presentation skills.
• 00:34 But so much of being a great communicator goes deeper than that.
• 00:39 And so many communication opportunities in life, it's about listening.
• 00:44 The best communicators in the world are often the best listeners.
• 00:49 People who are really great at making the one-on-one sale,
• 00:54 the best sales pitch, sometimes the best politicians who get the votes,
• 00:58 it's because they are the best at listening.
• 01:02 It really applies to every single type of communication.
• 01:07 Whether you're asking for a job, a raise, a budget to be approved,
• 01:13 you need to listen to what other people say.
• 01:17 I've been in countless pitch meetings with a client where PR firms
• 01:22 were pitching them for their business, and the ones that lost,
• 01:26 talk the most, they had the most slides up.
• 01:30 They stood up and gave the most formal presentations.
• 01:34 The PR firms that won, they asked questions, they sat back and
• 01:39 they listened.
• 01:41 And then they reacted quite often with another question.
• 01:46 So this applies to personal communications with friends and families,
• 01:51 colleagues, bosses.
• 01:52 Rather than just pushing out all your preordained ideas,
• 01:57 you've gotta really listen.
• 02:00 And great communication isn't something you just created working until midnight on
• 02:05 a PowerPoint three weeks ago.
• 02:07 You're there present with the person or with the group you're communicating with.
• 02:13 You're constantly listening, recalibrating and adjusting.
• 02:17 And believe it or not, this even applies to public speakers.
• 02:21 The best speakers in the world, pause.
• 02:27 They're looking for responses from their audience.
• 02:30 Sometimes it's just a nod.
• 02:32 It might be a look of confusion, that's a type of listening if you are the speaker.
• 02:38 So we're going to be covering more on listening in this course.
• 02:42 Just realize, so much communication has
• 02:45 nothing to do with your lips moving or even your eye contact.
• 02:51 It's about really hearing the messages coming out from other people so
• 02:55 we can respond to it, let them know we've heard them, react to it and
• 03:00 deal with their concerns.
• 03:02 Ideally, before we deal with our own concerns.

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