In today´s episode of the 'Professional Success Podcast', your host Sheila Boysen-Rotelli, a Master Certified Career Coach, Recruiter, and Talent Development Leader talks about how listening can help your career. She says whether your goal is landing a new job, getting promoted, building better relationships, or greater productivity, listening is something that you want to focus on improving.

Episode Highlights:

• Famous author - Kate Murphy while conducting many interviews in her book-learned that nearly everyone can describe a bad listening experience.
• Key tip: Let the other speaker finish. When someone is speaking, our brain works to actively try to finish their sentence or idea.
• The next thing to focus on is we need to let go of pre bubbles, it is a very common practice to begin formulating a response before the other person has even completed their idea.
• The final tip is to summarize, it's a great way to make sure you've understood the other person. Use the language of the other person, even if it's not necessarily the language you would commonly use.
• Sheila talks about some scenarios about getting a new job, or getting a promotion at work. She discusses what you need to do in these cases.
• Half listening or making assumptions can get you to the finish line sooner but you might be heading towards the wrong finish line.
• Sheila refers to a story that Kate shares in her book wherein the 1950s Betty Crocker launched a new product designed to appeal to busy homemakers and how the product sales soared.

3 Key Points:

1. Focus and try not to multitask like checking your phone. Recognize listening as an active process that requires your full attention. The truth is human beings are not good multitaskers.
2. Our brains simply cannot listen, and formulate at the same time which means as soon as we start thinking about what we want to say, instead, what we're going to say, it cuts off our ability to actively listen. So the idea is don't think about how you're going to respond until the other person has finished speaking. It's okay to give yourself a moment to think about what you want to say before responding.
3. Asking some questions about what's working and what's not, and then listening to the answers can provide all the inspiration required. There are many opportunities we leave on the table every time we don't ask questions and then just listen.

Resources Mentioned:

• Sheila Boysen-Rotelli: Website Podcast