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He wouldn't like me if I didn't finish school. I have to justify what I said.)
"No, I'm not. Look at Joe. He's quit school. He's working on cars. And he's making lots of
money. Now that's practical."
"It may look that way now. But several years down the road, Joe's going to wish he'd stayed in
school." (Oh, Boy! here comes lecture number 16 on the value of an education.) "You don't want to
be an auto mechanic." (How do you know that, Dad? Do you really have any idea what I want?)
"You need an education to prepare you for something better than that."
"I don't know. Joe's got a pretty good set-up." (He's not a failure. He didn't finish school and
he's not a failure.)
"Look, Son, have you really tried?" (We're beating around the bush, Dad. If you'd just listen, I
really need to talk to you about something important.)
"I've been in high school two years now. Sure I've tried. It's just a waste."
"That's a highly respected school, Son. Give them a little credit." (Oh, great. Now we're talking
credibility. I wish I could talk about what I want to talk about.)
"Well, the other guys feel the same way I do." (I have some credibility, too. I'm not a moron.)
"Do you realize how many sacrifices your mother and I have made to get you where you are?"
(Uh-oh, here comes the guilt trip. Maybe I am a moron. The school's great, Mom and Dad are great,
and I'm a moron.) "You can't quit when you've come this far."
"I know you've sacrificed, Dad. But it's just not worth it." (You just don't understand.)
"Look, maybe if you spent more time doing your homework and less time in front of TV..." (That's
not the problem, Dad! That's not it at all! I'll never be able to tell you. I was dumb to try.)
"Look, Dad. It's just no good. Oh, never mind! I don't want to talk about this anyway."
Can you see how limited we are when we try to understand another person on the basis of words
alone, especially when we're looking at that person through our own glasses? Can you see how
limiting our autobiographical responses are to a person who is genuinely trying to get us to understand
his autobiography?
You will never be able to truly step inside another person, to see the world as he sees it, until you
develop the pure desire, the strength of personal character, and the positive Emotional Bank Account,
as well as the empathic listening skills to do it.
The skills, the tip of the iceberg of empathic listening, involve four developmental stages
The first and least effective is to mimic content. This is the skill taught in "active" or "reflective"
listening. Without the character and relationship base, it is often insulting to people and causes them
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to close up. It is, however, a first-stage skill because it at least causes you to listen to what's being said
Mimicking content is easy. You just listen to the words that come out of someone's mouth and you
repeat them. You're hardly even using your brain at all
"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!"
"You've had it. You think school is for the birds."
You have essentially repeated back the content of what was being said. You haven't evaluated or
probed or advised or interpreted. You've at least showed you're paying attention to his words. But
to understand, you want to do more.
The second stage of empathic listening is to rephrase the content. It's a little more effective, but it's
still limited to the verbal communication
"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!"
"You don't want to go to school anymore."
This time, you've put his meaning into your own words. Now you're thinking about what he said,
mostly with the left side, the reasoning, logical side of the brain.
The third stage brings your right brain into operation. You reflect feeling.
"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!"
"You're feeling really frustrated."
Now you're not paying as much attention to what he's saying as you are to the way he feels about
what he's saying. The fourth stage includes both the second and the third. You rephrase the content
and reflect the feeling.
"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!"
"You're really frustrated about school."
Frustration is the feeling; school is the content. You're using both sides of your brain to understand
both sides of his communication.
Now, what happens when you use fourth stage empathic listening skills is really incredible. As
you authentically seek to understand, as you rephrase content and reflect feeling, you give him
psychological air. You also help him work through his own thoughts and feelings. As he grows in
his confidence of your sincere desire to really listen and understand, the barrier between what's going
on inside him and what's actually being communicated to you disappears. It opens a soul-to-soul flow.
He's not thinking and feeling one thing and communicating another. He begins to trust you with his
innermost tender feelings and thoughts.
"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!" (I want to talk with you to get your attention.)
"You're really frustrated about school." (That's right! That's how I feel.)
"I sure am. It's totally impractical. I'm not getting a thing out of it."
"You feel like school's not doing you any good." (Let me think -- is that what I mean?)
"Well, yeah. I'm just not learning anything that's going to help me. I mean, look at Joe. He's
dropped out of school and he's working on cars. He's making money. Now that's practical."
"You feel that Joe really has the right idea." (Well...)
"Well, I guess he does in a way. He's really making money now. But in a few years I bet he'll
probably be ticked off at himself."
"You think Joe's going to feel he made the wrong decision."
"He's got to. Just look at what he's giving up. I mean, if you don't have an education, you just
can't make it in this world."
"Education is really important."
"Oh, yeah! I mean, if you don't have a diploma, if you can't get jobs or go to college, what are you
going to do? You've just got to get an education."
"It's important to your future."
"It is. And, you know what? I'm really worried. Listen, you won't tell Mom, will you?"
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"You don't want your mother to find out."
"Well, not really. Oh, I guess you can tell her. She'll probably find out anyway. Look, I took this
test today, this reading test. And, Dad, they said I'm reading on a fourth-grade level. Fourth grade!
And I'm in junior high school!"
What a difference real understanding can make! All the well-meaning advice in the world won't
amount to a hill of beans if we're not even addressing the real problem. And we'll never get to the
problem if we're so caught up in our own autobiography, our own paradigms, that we don't take off
our glasses long enough to see the world from another point of view.
"I'm going to flunk, Dad. I guess I figure if I'm going to flunk, I might as well quit. But I don't
want to quit."
"You feel torn. You're in the middle of a dilemma."
"What do you think I should do, Dad?"
By seeking first to understand, this father has just turned a transactional opportunity into a
transformational opportunity. Instead of interacting on a surface, get-the-job-done level of
communication, he has created a situation in which he can now have transforming impact, not only on
his son but also on the relationship. By setting aside his own autobiography and really seeking to
understand, he has made a tremendous deposit in the Emotional Bank Account and has empowered his
son to open, layer upon layer, and to get to the real issue.
Now father and son are on the same side of the table looking at the problem, instead of on opposite
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