Deb Porter – Transforming Relationships with Active Listening

Hi and welcome to.

The You World

Order Showcase podcast. Today we have with us Deb Porter. Deb is the founder of hold and hearing out lifedrama.com. She is also the creator of a course called Listen Your Way to deeper connections. I'm really excited to learn about what that's about. Welcome Deb.

It's really great to have you with us. I'm going to have to put on my listening ears and be really good.

About this today.

Feel like it's a.

Ohh my goodness Jill though. Thank you so much. First of all for having me that. What a what? A gift. And no, there's no test.

Oh great.

So tell us your story. I know it's pretty interesting how you got started and when you guys started. It's pretty unusual actually.

OK, so the story is, uh, this is this is always interesting for me because I prefer listening to speaking and so, umm, I usually do OK with one-on-one conversations, but here.

We go. So I actually felt.

Called to ministry when I was 19, I wanted to really wanted to help people.

And so I went to seminary. I got my degree in 96 hour of degree and with a specialization, care and counseling. And I was working in the church full time in my late 20s and a family member came out to me and at the same time that this family member came out the church trials were going on in Illinois.

My colleagues friends of mine were being put on church trial and they were being stripped of their ordination and of their pen.

And there was all of this discord and unhappiness, and I sat back and looked at all of that and said if my family member ever asked me to.

Marry them. What will I say?

And my answer was of.

Course I would. Of course there's not.

Even a question or a pause there, of course. And so I decided the church was not the place for me to stay. And so I left ministry at the time, my daughter was one, and when she had been born, we discovered that the genetic condition that.

Resulted in the death of my husband at the times.

His two.

Siblings, he actually had that genetic condition.

We had been told prior uh that he couldn't possibly have it because he wasn't dead.

And so.

Uh, that was a bit of a shift in our for us and.

We were adapting to all of that too. At that time. There was a lot going.

On around that as we like.

Tried to wrap our heads around what that would look like for our future when my daughter was 3.

He almost died was 21 days in and out of five different intensive care units.

It was quite.

And managed to get through that. And then interestingly, after that experience, he's like I want, I want another child. I wanna. I wanna see if.

We can have a son. That's that idea.

You almost just died and now you want to have another child. I'm not sure I'm up for that.

And so I'm like, let's talk to the doctor, your geneticist, and find out like what the prognosis is like, what? What should we expect? Because obviously, I want to live our life together, but I just don't know about this. And so we sat down with this doctor and she said the most.

Impactful thing, she said. Deb. She's like.

You can walk out into the.

Street and get hit by a bus today.

How you gonna live your life? Are you gonna live in fear? Are you gonna live in hope?

That's powerful for me. That was really, really powerful. And so I made a choice. I said, OK, I'm gonna live and hope I'm not gonna live in fear. I don't wanna do that. In fact, the name that we chose for our son actually means conqueror because it I was conquering my fear. So anyway, so we moved on and we had our son, and we had our family. And then.

UM, my husband again got very, very ill, critically ill.

And for eight years it was everyday.

Trying to keep him.

And I was very determined for our kids that I would do that because I wanted them to have the experience of this person in their life. He felt he's a he had so much to offer them and so much to teach them. And I wanted us to be a family. And so I worked with the doctors. I never gave up and tried to find a solution for him.

Eventually I, uh, we did. We were successful, we were successful and he got better. And unfortunately as he got better, the marriage fell apart.

Could not sustain.

The re-entry I think of it like.

A rocket ship like it was like.

Some serious re-entry back into to Wellness and all the things that got shaken up. I've taken over everything I've been doing, all of the things for years.

And we just could not find a balance that worked.

And so we decided we would part and we were divorced. And at the time I was working at a Funeral Home.

Really, really, really loved my Funeral Home job. That was that. Hit all so many of the.

Boxes for me because.

I was able to listen to people and I was there when they really needed help.

And then the Funeral Home came to those of us who were working there. And they said we're changing the compensation plan we promised you that you've been receiving. We're going with this other preneed plan and instead we're going to give you a $25 gift card for the pre needs that you.

And so the cash.

Bonus that we were getting.

And almost all of us said thank you. Goodbye. That's not that.

Wasn't the agreement.

And so I'll.

Or the live on gift.

Cards, right? How do you?

Do the gift card. No, right? Yeah, no.

No, just no. Anyway, so at the time I was reading a book that was really focused on imagination. Many of your listeners may know what they can grow rich by Napoleon Hill and that chapter on imagination really got me. And I was like, OK, if I could just do anything in my life.

I was almost 50. I was like, if I could do anything. I'm 52 now. If I could do anything. What is it that I'd want to do?

And I thought, well.

What if I just listen? What happens if I just listen?

And so that was the genesis of hold. And uh reached out to a good friend that I knew Linda Nielsen. And I said, Linda, will you come build this thing with?

Me and she said.

She's 10 years older than I am.

And she said, wow, really you want me? And I was like ohh yeah.

I totally want you.

And so she said yes. And here we are still going a couple of years.

That's the story.

That's amazing. I love that so much and.

When I hear hold.

It makes me think of pausing.

And in a pause.

You do listen.

Is that?

Kind of where?

You came up with that name or is there?

A different story behind that.

Well, the name of the business was really hard because we were like, well, we could name events, but then we started looking at like, ah, we get air conditioning events.

And all kinds of things and so.

Really hard and so, but hearing out life drama and using the letters for the acronym hold. Yeah, that just really fit for me. And so. And it wasn't Linda's first choice. I don't think to be honest, but she's like.

OK, OK.

OK. We'll go with that so.

I really like it, it does.

Speak to me.

Of what it.

It's the acronym for even though I.

Apparently, I said, what's up?

Yeah, lots of people miss it. Don't. Don't feel bad.

Joe, feel good.

I'm really bad with acronyms to begin with. I mean I people throw acronyms around and I'm constantly trying to search my mind for ohh what? What did that mean I forget.

Yeah, I actually encourage people in their communication to use it as little as possible simply because of that reason. It's like people will miss if you are not clear in your communication.

When you use acronyms, people tend to stop listening because they're trying to figure out what that acronym means. So there there's a gap between when you were talking you said the acronym, and then you said something afterwards and during that.

Until they can connect that in their brain with what you were trying to impart with that part, even if they're listening really intently to you that.

And then they.

Have to catch back up and they.

Start hearing again. From that point where OK now it's registered my brainstem doing that little piece of exercise and then and then it takes a minute for them to like.

Reconnect with what you're saying because they missed.

The piece that came afterwards, it's kind of like when you tell a kid don't do something.

They missed the don't the young kids. They missed the don't. So if you want a child to stop doing something, you need to say.

You need to say.

It in a positive way like go do this.

Instead of, don't do that.

Because they will continue doing whatever it was that you said don't do because it just doesn't register with them that it's supposed to be a cessation versus a continuation. They don't have the ability to.

To juxtapose that that.

It was a.

Little thing that I learned, I think it was.

With my third child.

It really was helpful because it.

It keeps you from being frustrated.

So there are some skills along with listening.

That make it easier for people to hear you.

Yes, indeed. Yes indeed.

So tell us a little bit about.

Your course.

What is it? What is it about? How does it work?

How do you work with people?

Yeah. So, listen, your way to deeper connections is a 21 day master course. And so it's a drip course every day for 21 days. You'll get something in your inbox. It consists of video as well as written material, assessments, resources, all the good things and it's intended to be about 15 minutes a day.

So that anybody can find 15 minutes, even a busy mom. Anybody can. You can find 15 minutes. You can during your lunch even. I mean you can.

Uh, we just really wanted it to be accessible and not overwhelming because there's a lot there. And UM, there's a lot to learn and practice and so.

It's really intended to help people become a better listener. You know so often.

UM people think well, I'm a good.

Listener, but if.

They when I then asked the question have.

You ever been taught?

Active listening.

And it usually brings people up short because according.

To listen dot.

Org only 2% of people in our nation have ever had any training in active listening, and so no, most people haven't. And that's kind of the beauty of what we're I think we're presenting to the world is an opportunity to learn these skills, you know, even was it, it was on another podcast.

And they were psychologists, and I said, did you have any training and active listening before you got into your higher level of the program? And they're like, no, no, I didn't. And so it's really not something that you get unless you're gonna be a in that field. So

Or sales.

Sometimes salespeople, yes. And actually sales people understand that listening is important, but even among them, I find a large openness to what I'm teaching because they know they should. But some of them still.

Haven't been taught how.

Yeah, they just don't know how it's.

It's one of those skills that.

It's not hard, but once you learn it.

It really does change your life and it changes your ability to understand what people are actually saying.

To you which.

Is it's empowering on both sides of the conversation.

Yes it is.

Absolutely, 100%. I was so excited to hear you say that cause you get it. Yeah. Yes, it does. That's what I want to do. I want to change people's lives for the better. Because when you really do listen well, it changes all of those relationships, relationships with your spouse, with your kids and you.

Or in your work, whatever your whatever it is that you're doing, it impacts everything because suddenly you're communicating on.

A deeper level.

Everybody thinks that business, the foundation of businesses, relationships, well the foundation of relationships is communication and the foundation of that is listening.

Yes, and being able to take that information and synthesize it in a way that helps both of you progress further along a path so that you can work together instead of just. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think I heard what you said.

Instead of repackaging it, restating it, giving it back to them and saying.

This is what you were saying, is this is what I think I understood you were saying.

And it gives them an opportunity to correct what you think you heard too, which is.

Actually helpful whenever you're trying to like do anything, even if it's like going to the grocery store. You know, what do you guys want for dinner next week? Ohh. I'd like you know, hamburger.

Something. Well, let's talk about the hamburger or something. What does?

That look like to you?

You get. You get ideas, you get.

But it's.

The give and take and being able to have a conversation, you can't really have a conversation with people if they're not listening. If they're not feeding stuff back to.

Yeah, I love that you just touched on that. It's one of the things we touched on in the course, of course, is asking good questions and open-ended question versus closed and the questions and all of that good stuff is there. So yeah, I love that you're so in tune and obviously a really.

Good listener who's had some training yourself. That's good.

Yeah, done a lot of plot.

So you get to practice.

Indeed. So I know you have a.

Free offer for people. It's called the.

Runaway freight train and I told you before we got started that I was going to ask you about the.

Name of that.

Really fascinating. So what's that all about?

So the runaway freight train brain is a free mini course and it actually started out as just a video. And I was like ohh but I have so much more to say. And so then we built it out into a course. I was like, oh, this is this would be really, really good for people. And there's some meat here that we can really offer. And so I was very excited about it.

The runaway freight train brain came about because.

So many people in my.

The world have.

Brains that are like that. They're highly gifted people who think really quickly and so they have trouble staying focused on the conversation. And So what this many course is about is.

Practical, very practical, specific help to help you stay on track so that you can listen in those conversations and your brain isn't that runaway for a campaign.

I'm so it's hard.

I think for people to just like.

Slow down and focus. It's hard to just be and the practice of being is so important when you're listening to people just staying connected to them while they're talking, even if they speak really slowly because some people are, they're just.

Go, go, go, go, go. I don't.

Have time to listen to your really long.

That you're trying to communicate to me some piece of information and.

So they just they.

Miss so much of what is being said because they're often their own thoughts.

Instead of being connected to the conversation.

I think that's really helpful.

And I'm assuming that you're giving them tools and exercises to practice.

Check it out.

Check it out it out.

I will. I will check.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's good. Let me know what you.

Think I'd love to, I'd love.

To have feedback, I'd love to hear.

I would, I would love that. So we were talking a little bit about all of the things that you have to know, get to know you reframed it for me.

When you're an.

Entrepreneur these days, and it's really like in the last.

Year or so that AI has like taken over, you want to talk about that?

For a minute.

Oh, my word.

Acting your business.

Oh, that has been the number one challenge for me as a business owner is all of the things to learn in order to keep the business afloat. So for example, there have been so many programs when we started, so I'm not a. So I'm a listener. That's what I do like. I'm really good at that. But I didn't know anything about building a website and I needed to do this.

Affordably. So Wix was my choice and.

That meant you.

Know starting with the template and trying to figure it out and then realizing, Oh no, I actually I don't have any graphic design at all and I this is not good. And then going through a couple of iterations of that and.

Uh, obviously, since GPT came out, that's helped some in terms of because I'm not a marketer.

Either it's like.

How do you?

Synthesize and say this in a way so there's one woman that I met who recommended Donald Miller's book story, building a story brand and.

So you.

GPT actually knows Donald's story, Brandon, so you can say, hey, give me this copy and story brand. That's actually really helpful when you're trying to build a landing page. But I mean, if you'd have told me three years ago that I would be building landing pages.

I'd have laughed at you.

But now, now we're doing it and we're figured, Linda and I, uh, you know, I mentioned she's 10 years older than I am. You know, she's 62, I'm 52. We're figuring it out because that's the beauty of our brains, is we have the capability to learn.

And how we do and it's kind of fun to me anyway, going through all of these challenges to learn and see the different.

Iterations that are coming along. I'm 63, so I remember.

Are you OK?

The Internet, when it first started.

Right.

Like I was one.

Of a Webber's first customers I was.

Online before Google was.

A thing?

We did dial up Internet.

With a telephone that was a landline.

Yes, we did.

A layered line, yes, we did.

Was even before cell phones were a thing.

Oh my God. Yes it was.

When I see all of this stuff coming.

It's just like, oh, that's.

Really interesting. And it's like a onslaught of all of these new and different technologies, like and I'm. I'm really familiar with Wix and Shopify and.

Although these kind of canned websites that you can build with templates and I'm really good at WordPress because I preferred it over most of these other ones. But I've built websites for people.

That's what I was doing.

In the before. So it's really interesting to me to see all of these iterations coming along and the AI how it's being used in a variety of ways. It's way more than just ChatGPT. There are. There are companies that are springing up that are using it to.

Do you just specific?

Niches or professions? That's really helpful for them and I'm.

I I'm.

Kind of twofold.

In in what I my thoughts on it and one of them is that I'm concerned that maybe.

ChatGPT is going to end up being a circular reference because there's more and more people use that.

Verbiage from the.

GBT functions because it scans the Internet I.

Know it says.

They used documents and stuff, but I don't believe that for a minute they are. They are scraping the Internet, repackaging stuff and giving it to you. But then when people put that information back out on the Internet, eventually they're just going to be scraping their own information.

So if it's not.

It's not source information.

At one point, the Internet was.

Just source information.

Yes, yes it was.

You got original documents and then people started collating that information and combining it and then you've got a second generation bit of information and 3rd and 4th and 5th and it functions.

Kind of like.

The telephone game.

Where it tends to lose something along the way.

My mother used to say, quote your source.

Drove me crazy for the longest time when.

I was a kid, but it was a.

Valuable, valuable piece of information that she.

She told me about and.

When you look at stuff on the Internet.

You need to be curious.

And it.

Kind of goes back to the whole listening thing.

You do?

In in some ways, when you're reading.

In your head, and if you're not getting accurate information, and if you're not questioning the information that you're getting and trying to take.

It back to its source.

You could end up.

In a place you might.

Not want to.

Be I'm hoping that the Internet doesn't go that direction, but.

I see the potential for it happening.

Yeah, I don't disagree with you. I think anytime we have a tool, it's meant to be a tool. And if you must bring your own intelligence.

To use that tool.

Properly, I mean, just like my grandfather.

Used to use his hoe.

In the fields in Iowa, it's the same thing. He knew exactly how to shift that hoe to make that work.

For him, and so AI is my, you know, as a tool here now available to me.

And it's.

But if you don't use.

It well, it's not gonna.

It's stuck it again.

You're gonna have weeds. Let's just leave it at.

That you're gonna.

OK.

Definitely going to have weeds.

But on the other side, you know the images that it creates.

Yeah, I'm really excited that you told me about that. I haven't found the right ones for images. I'm. I'm. I'm not a graphic designer at all. It's like I mentioned one of the things I struggle with. And so knowing some tools for that, it's going to be really exciting. There is a carousel AI that I use that has been helpful for LinkedIn creating carousels there.

Well, yeah, it's interesting. It's a new development and they're popping up all over every day.

They yeah, they really are. And it they are helpful if you can use them as the tool. If you use you know it's a hoe.

It's not sentient. I know people want to think that AI is going to.

Become sentient and rule the world that.

It it's always going to be a program.

Doesn't have innate intelligence.

Yeah. And one of the movies that our family has always loved a lot is Bicentennial man. Do you know the story?

Do you know? Have you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's I mean that that was really leading edge. Isaac Asimov, I believe, was the original author of the story and Robin Williams brought it to life through his through the movie Bicentennial Man.

And some fascinating story. And it definitely I think I haven't watched it for a.

Few years, but maybe I should.

Watch it again because it kind of feels like it's really relevant for today.

Yeah, a lot of those.

1950s stories that we read, 40s, fifties.

It's pretty interesting. Bradbury's the belt. There was a story of rooms that.

They were essentially television screens that covered the.

Whole wall and these kids were watching a movie.

About the belt.

In Africa with lions and they brought their parents in and they left and the parents.

Got eaten by the lions?

But every time I see these huge television screens as I think of that story, it's like.

Wow. What's traumatized with that one?

And you know.

Metaverse as it exists and they're trying to.

Make it you know more.

And more realistic and like.

I don't know where it's going.

Kind of interesting.

We also offer listening appointments at Holden, so one of the things that we thought about is maybe people would feel more comfortable in, in a virtual chat room rather than in conversation like a zoom room. Maybe people, you know. So that's why we do over phone zoom and chat and eventually we kind of thought well, we'll put it in the pot and maybe down the road.

That's something that we'll offer though.

You know, zoom does some interesting things.

As far as.

Yes, they do.

The way you.

The way you can.

See people in groups I just learned about that fairly recently. I thought that was pretty fascinating.

Yeah, it's quite common that Linda will become cowgirl, and she'll show.

Up with her caricature with her hat.

She likes to play.

With that a lot.

Yeah, yeah. There's all kinds of. There was somebody.

Who had a story?

About they were in.

A board meeting on Zoom and he had been a frog or something and he couldn't get the frog.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's trying to be so professional and.

Not so much.

You know, I feel.

Like too when that happens.

It shows our humanity. It shows if people can just be playful, then I mean, obviously he might have been embarrassed. But isn't it beautiful that if I wish he could reframe it for himself, I don't. He'll probably never hear this. But if he could imagine and just know.

How happy other people were that who heard about this, that he was playing with people and having fun with the young people in his life, right, and engaging them and meeting them where they are. That's powerful. Sometimes we get so stuck in our adult frame of mind that we don't just let ourselves.

Play and.

Imagine so.

Yeah. And imagine is where all the magic begins, because if everything that ever existed started in someone's imagination, and it's so powerful if you can, if you can imagine yourself doing something or being something.

Or experiencing something and really get the details of it down in your imagination. Daydreaming.

Whoever said you should never Daydream.

They should be banished.

Banished from my Kingdom, I tell.

You, because that's, that's where.

Things happen.

Kermit the Frog, the lovers, the Dreamers and me, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm with you on that.

So how do people actually work with you?

So a couple of different ways. If somebody just needs someone to listen and their family, friends or coworkers are too close to the problem, or worse, are the problem and you just need somebody to hear you, I do that. I've trained A-Team to do.

That additionally, this course is available, people can take the course and learn the.

Skills and they may very well find that as they apply the listening skills in their life, their relationships will not only deepen, but the people around them will also start listening to them better as they model it and show others. This is how.

You do it.

And if somebody wants my help and understanding and applying, going through that.

First, there's a way you can add on time with me. I'll help you. Happy to do that.

I see it more as mentoring than coaching. I believe everybody has the answers inside themselves and so it's just a matter of helping you find that. I know some coaches believe that too. So it's a bit of murky water maybe for some there anyway.

How else can people work with me? I do speaking engagements. If you're a business happening to own a business and happen to be listening to this, I'm happy to come in and train your team. I'm happy to do some one-on-one.

Mentoring as well, so yeah.

Lots of noise.

That is perfect and they can reach you through carrying out life.

Drama.com. Yeah. Yeah. Hearing out livedrama.com. It's OK. It's long. It's long. But the fact is, uh, hold was already taken. The other thing so.

Dot com.

Very expensive, no doubt.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we ended up with hearing.

Outlivedrama.com so.

I like it. I like it. I wasn't.

So worried about it.

Being long I was. I was trying to read my handwriting.

My other calling was probably doctor only because I already have the handwriting. I should have just gone with the education.

So Deb, is there one thing you want to leave the audience with today?

I just love to let them know that if you, UM, are wanting to be a better listener, it's possible you might feel frustrated in your relationships right now. Think it's not gonna help, but in reality.

Me it will. It will give it a try and allow yourself to go through that learning process because anytime you learn something, it is a process and it can really make a.

Difference so.

You really can, and as you said before, I think once you learn to listen other people.

Learn to listen to it's your.

It's kind of a reciprocal thing. When you're doing something, it mirrors back at you.

With the people that you're trying to communicate with it and it's kind of a ripple effect, you know you take the stand and figure something out and then it happens to impact your whole family and your community. And it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing you're doing.

I got goose. I got goosebumps all over again. I love it when people talk about the ripples, because that is exactly what I envisioned. It's exactly what I imagine that I want those ripples to go everywhere so that everybody feels heard. Ah, isn't that amazing? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And being the being the hearer is the first step in a in a community of.

Of people that really do listen to you.

It is.

It really is.

Thank you so much for joining me.

An amazing conversation. I've really enjoyed it.

Good. Thanks Jill. I.

Did too. Thanks for having me.