Imagine that each of us is wearing glasses with differently tinted lenses. The color of your lens represents your background, culture, and beliefs, and influences how you see and interpret the world. Through your green-tinted lens, it might feel almost impossible to imagine my fuchsia-tinted world.

So it was when Kym Dakin, author of Head, Heart, and Hands Listening in Coach Practice was hired by The Environmental Protection Agency to help their field operators, who were focused on environmental impacts and data, communicate with farmers and landowners who saw the land through completely different lenses. 

While each of us sees the world differently, we also hear others differently. In this episode, you’ll learn about three types of listening: Head, Heart, and Hand Listening, and how understanding these different listening styles can help you communicate more effectively.

Head Listeners hear data, Heart Listeners hear feelings underneath words, and Hand Listeners listen to translate words into actions.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• [00:15:00] How to assess your personal listening style.

• [00:28:00] The role of assumptions and personal stories in shaping our listening styles.

• [00:32:00] Questions you can ask to improve the impact of your listening.

Kym was nominated for the Uplifters by Julie Hughes.

About Kym:

Kymberly Dakin-Neal is a mindset coach specializing in effective communication and professional presence for over a decade. She works successfully with newly promoted employees, women running for office, and entrepreneurs pitching new products. Kym helps train medical professionals in more productive listening and patient communication via the Standardized Patient program at Tufts and Kaiser Permanente. Kym has also developed and recently sold a bookmarking app called Nugget to eliminate the need to take notes in online meetings. She is a mindset coach with Positive Intelligence and her book “Head, Heart, and Hands Listening in Coach Practice” has been released this year by Routledge Publishers. Learn more about Kym: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and check out her wonderful book: Head, Heart, and Hands Listening in Coach Practice by Kimberly Dakin-Neal

Episode Summary

**Segment 1: Exploring Kym's Journey into Listening**

- Kym shares her experience of working with field operators in the Department of Environmental Protection.

- Field operators' frustration in communicating with landowners violating environmental statutes.

- The realization that effective communication required a shift in listening styles.

- Introduction to three modalities of listening: head, heart, and hands listening.

- The story of Kym's experience with her teenage daughter, and the challenges of different listening styles within the family.

- How personal experiences and professional work led Kym to explore and refine her own listening skills.

**Segment 2: Understanding Heart Listening**

- Aransas and Kym discuss heart listening as a focus on emotions, body language, and the truth beneath words.

- Kym's story of her near-collision on the highway and Aransas' analysis of...

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