Navigating Conflict, Relationships & The "Self Help" Industry | Ask Me Anything Vol. 7 with Dr. Michael Gervais

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Michael Gervais (1:12)

I believe that we need to go back to our true nature, which is we are social beings first. We are an interconnected, intimately involved ecosystem. And to to orientate ourselves from that place is the right framing. Not like 1980, I need to be better myself so that I can win the medal. I need to be better myself so I can help my teammates. I can help my partners be great in life.

All right, welcome back. Or welcome to another Ask Me Anything on Finding Mastery. You may have noticed something a little different about this one. It's coming out on a Monday. And that's because we've received so much great feedback on the AMA series that we've decided to break it off into its own slot on our feed. So moving forward, keep an eye out on the AMAs coming to you once a month on a Monday. If you don't already subscribe to Finding Mastery, please hit the follow button on whatever podcast player you're listening to. So that way, they will automatically show up in your feed. And if you are subscribed to the newsletter, you'll receive updates there as well. And if you're not subscribed there, feel free to head over to findingmastery.com/newsletter to sign up. Okay, so let's get right into it. I'm really excited to welcome back the one, the only O'Neill Cespedes as our cohost for this month's AMA. As always, we have a blast answering your questions. And he took us to some really interesting and insightful places. In this episode, we cover how to be a great listener, the benefits and costs of vulnerability in leadership, navigating defensiveness in intimate relationships, and what is wrong with the self-help industry. We get into so much more as well. So as a reminder, please feel free to email info at findingmastery.net with feedback or questions you may have for our next month's AMA. So with that, let's jump right into Vol. 7 of Finding Mastery's Ask Me Anything. O'Neill, we're back at it.

O'Neill Cespedes (3:21)

We're back at it, Dr. Mike. We're back at it.

Michael Gervais (3:23)

It's great to see you.

O'Neill Cespedes (3:24)

It's great to see you as well.

Michael Gervais (3:25)

I look forward to your take as much as the questions that are coming through.

O'Neill Cespedes (3:30)

I appreciate that. I look forward to your responses.

Michael Gervais (3:32)

Yeah, okay, good.

O'Neill Cespedes (3:33)

Usually some of these questions are applied to some issues I may have, so it works well.

Michael Gervais (3:39)

Yeah, I never know how I'm going to answer them. And so I guess at some level it's as interesting to me of what's going to come out as well.

O'Neill Cespedes (3:47)

I think that's the excitement though, right? They're getting truth, nothing rehearsed. Yeah.

Michael Gervais (3:52)

All right. Well, let's jump into them.

O'Neill Cespedes (3:53)

Let's jump into them. All right. Suki says, Dr. Mike, you are an excellent listener. How would you teach the skill of listening?

Michael Gervais (4:03)

Thank you, Suki.

I haven't had a formal training in listening, so I'm not going to borrow for some theory or something, but I'll tell you how I do it. I'll tell you my experience in it, is that if I don't care, it's really hard to listen. So the first order of business is like really caring. And so if I start there, it's like caring about what? Caring about the person, caring about what they're trying to sort out, caring about the idea that we're trying to solve or whatever. So it's like a deep care is where it starts. And then what happens for me is that I reach this moment where like my focus, my concentration wanders or wanes. And so I'm pulled somewhere else. So I'm listening, listening, listening, and then some other thought enters or something happens to my concentration. And so I need to know how to bring that back. And so if I follow that distraction for an extended period of time, I'm missing really important information. And so it's having the psychological skill to be able to navigate that deep focus. So I have to extend my ability to focus, you know, from what's called three seconds to eight seconds to 16 seconds. And that's a trainable skill. And then secondarily is to have the skill to come back to the task at hand, which is listening. So that's kind of the main rocks, if you will, caring and then working ahead of time to extend my ability to concentrate and focus. And then when my mind does wonder how to bring it back, that's why mindfulness is like an important concept and strategy to be able to employ well ahead of listening to anything. The second thing related to that is like, I'm less interested in the mechanical words that that are taking place and equally or more interested in the emotion that they're coming from. So it's like trying to map listening right below the surface, like where is this coming from? What's happening? Like where is the deeper language taking place? The emotional language, how is that taking place? So that's kind of like a constellation of ideas that work for me.