How to Listen with Intention | Coach Finds Purpose with the Art of Listening with Nicholas Whitaker

WDYKTBT 20 - Art of Listening with Nicholas Whitaker

Nicholas: That led to early, uh, exposure to like things like documentary film. I remember when I was in middle school, like I shot my first documentary film. I can't remember what the actual event was, but it was on racism. And this was in central Pennsylvania. And I was interviewing kids in the library of our middle school, talking about their experiences with race and othering.

And I remember like having this, you know, VHS thing. Tape deck camera, uh, and looking at people through the little viewfinder and having these conversations with folks and realizing that through powerful questions and by really holding space for somebody's story and narrative, it creates this sense of connection that you just don't get in normal everyday life.

And I think for me, that was a bit of the aha moment. And ever since then, it was essentially like one thing after another, leading me to opportunities to hold space and to, to, to cultivate listening. Um, after I was no longer quite as awkward and quite as introverted as I was when I was a kid, then it kind of turned into this other thing where.

You know, I could hold space for people that were dealing with a difficult, traumatic event. I could have a business meeting with somebody and really deeply understand like what their pain points were and what they were trying to solve for so that me as a consultant, I could kind of wedge myself in there and offer some sort of a solution, uh, later on now as a coach and as a facilitator for mindfulness, obviously it helps quite a bit.

Um, but yeah, I, I think it, I think it was born out of almost a deficit of a sense of belonging and connection with others. And it was cultivated as a way to try to learn how to be with others and be in community.

Roger: Hi, I'm Roger Kastner and welcome to the, what do you know to be true podcast. In these conversations, I talk with ordinary people about their extraordinary talent, their superhero power and the meaningful impact it has on others. The goal is not to try to emulate or hack our way to a new talent. Instead, the intention is to learn more about their experience with their superhero power.

And in doing so, maybe we can learn something about the special talent in each of us that makes us unique. This conversation is with Nicholas Whitaker and his superhero power of the art of listening. Nicholas has years of experience as a coach. In running meditation and mindfulness programs for a large technology company as a documentary filmmaker, and now as a co founder of a company that is attempting to create generative workspaces, Nicholas's mission is to help others alleviate their suffering.

And he does this by helping them activate their authentic selves. He is using the superhero power. They learned very early on as a way to safely navigate his world. And And now he's using that same superhero power to help thousands, not just survive in their world, but to thrive in their world. If you're ready, let's dive in.

Hey, Nicholas, thanks for joining me here today. It's wonderful to be here with you. Thanks so much, Roger. It's really a pleasure to be here too. The pleasure's all mine. Um, I know you to be and to do a lot of the, a lot of things. And some of those things we have in common, like we're both coaches, like we both enjoy a good cold plunge and we, why we want to make the world a better place.

And we're focusing in making that world a better place by making the workplace a better place for people. What is important for us to know about Nicholas Whitaker.

Nicholas: Well, thank you. First of all, and it's important work that you're doing out there in the world. And I think for me at the top level, like my goal in the world is right to truly try to alleviate human suffering at scale.

You know, that that's something that I've been doing for a while. I didn't always have the language to describe what the mission was, but, you know, in the different initiatives and, uh, projects that I was getting involved with in some way or another is either trying to help people better understand the world around them, better understand themselves, or how to better understand how to interact and engage with each other.

So lately, like a lot of the work that I'm doing, as you mentioned, like I'm a coach, I'm an executive wellbeing and performance coach. So I really try to help leaders and Folks that are in high pressure environments thrive within those environments and get more aligned with their purpose and the meaning that they want to put out there into the world.

And then on the, on the side of that, I have a whole separate company, which is the changing work collective. And the whole idea behind that is essentially changing work from the inside out. And what we mean by that is really trying to surface the best practices, the best modalities, the best thought leadership for leaders within these organizations and within these environments to be able to show up with compassion and mindfulness and approach business and approach leadership for more of a conscious place.

Uh, We're scaling pretty rapidly. We're right now really helping to address coaches, facilitators, subject matter experts, people that are going into these organizations and providing this type of guidance. We're also working directly with leaders and pretty soon we're going to be also helping employees that might be impacted by less than conscious teams and less, less than conscious leaders.

But all of it, the whole endeavor behind that is this idea that things have changed in the last 50, 60 years, uh, at least in the United States, like, um, Religion faith has basically been on the decline. Uh, community organizations like rotary clubs and other organizations like that have been on decline.

There really isn't the same type of community effervescence that you would see in those types of environments. Uh, the way we might've had in older generations and what's replaced. That is the culture of organizations and corporations and business. And a lot of this we hear, I came from the tech world.

You hear this idea of like the culture of being so paramount and so important and belonging to, to the culture of belonging to this kind of more family style approach to things. And I think what we've, what we've noticed is that. There's been some organizations that have done this really, really well.

There's some leaders that have done this really powerfully, and there's a whole lot that haven't. And I think the net result of that is lack of engagement, lack of sense of connection. We have a loneliness epidemic here in the, in the United States and in most Western cultures, cultures these days, I feel like there's this overall lack of belief in the future, uh, for a lot of people.

And And this fear of, you know, what we've, what we've created, what we built here. So what we're trying to do is really try to create like a new way of approaching business and leadership that, that fosters connection and belonging and foster psychological safety. So all those things that we want to occur, like innovation and creativity and productivity can even have a fighting chance to occur in the first place.

Roger: So your superhero power, and I love this is the art of listening. And that phrase makes me think about that construct of art. And science. So I'd love to hear how you define art of listening. And if there's, if, if you have a way of talking about that separation of art and science, when it comes to listening.

Nicholas: Oh, yeah. I love the question. Well, I don't know that there is a separation between the two, you know, like as with everything, art and science is intermixed. It's, it's integral to the approach. You know, if I think about listening as a superpower, to me, it's about presence. It's about arriving fully to this moment and being pure, being curious and, uh, present to what's actually happening.

Mindfulness is essentially arriving in the moment on purpose with awareness, without judgment. Hmm. Or with curiosity and awareness without judgment. To me, that's so much about what it means to be a good listener. You know, there's a lot of different schools of thought around listening. Um, there's a lot of trainings that you can do around listening.

Active listening is one that comes up quite a bit. Um, nonviolent communication is a, is another one that you can kind of take a look at, uh, for clues. But as somebody who's probably interviewed hundreds of people in documentaries that I've done over the years, what I learned was, um, Whatever questions that I have in my mind that I have queued up and ready to go are irrelevant.

You know, what's really most important is like, am I co regulating with this person? Am I letting those mirror neurons that are hardwired into our brain to be able to receive somebody else's experience? Are those firing? Am I ruminating on what's for lunch? Am I spending too much time thinking about what I want to say coming up next?

If I'm doing those things and I'm not really present to the individual and I'm not really. They're right, and I think that's where people really get tripped up quite a bit is like they're maybe approaching listening from an extractive standpoint. Actually, just to go back to what we were talking about before.

They're trying to pull out the nuggets of information that will help prove their point or help give them the opportunity to ask that next question. What they're not really doing is trying to connect with people on like a fundamental and deep level. And I think to me, it's like, if you're going to spend an hour of your life with somebody, or if you're going to spend any amount of time with somebody, why would you want to do that in a half assed way?

Like, why would you want to do that in a way that has an agenda? It kind of defeats the entire purpose of connecting with people in the first place. You might as well just talk to yourself in the mirror, record yourself. So for me, like listening is really about connecting. And connecting is really about vulnerability and being open to other people's experiences so that you can be more in accord with your own experience.

Roger: I think the younger Roger would have heard that with the idea of trying to figure out how to argue against that. Whereas maybe the, the, the more recent Roger is, is regretting the years I wasn't thinking that way. That this isn't, you're not, people talk about sometimes you listen when you're really just waiting to, to talk.

I think I've spent a lot of time listening with the idea of coming up with, okay, what's, how do I, how do I land my argument? How do I convince this person to, to agree with my point of view and not how do I connect with this person? And, and I think there's some, you know, some reasons for that in my past and it's connected to an unmet need that I had that helped me find my, you know, my superhero power, which is, I think, part of that's being expressed in these conversations and why.

This podcast and be becoming a coach and doing the work that I do in organizations is so fulfilling because I'm getting to express and getting to attend to maybe that unmet need and filling it with not connections is where it's at. That's, that's where the good stuff is. And being present in that moment and not trying to convince people of something, but trying to understand where they're at.

So maybe you could learn something about where you're at.

Nicholas: Yeah, that's exactly it. You know, so, so much of this to me is arriving to what is, you know, I got Ram Dass sitting here behind me, you know, the whole idea is like, you know, arriving to what's happening in the moment, life is already happening. Like there's nothing that we need to do.

Right. Other than just be present and aware of what's actually occurring. And when you're talking about engaging with other people, I think the real gift and the opportunity of language and being able to express and being able to even hear and communicate in the ways that we are. It's a unique thing.

Nothing else on the planet is able to do this. The gift there is being able to come together and arrive to what's actually happening, both for yourself and for the other person. And that I think is what then becomes what we call collective effervescence, right? It's like when you bring things together, the, the, the beauty and the magic that kind of bubbles up from that engagement and that interaction that doesn't occur if you're arriving from a closed standpoint, or if you're coming from it with an agenda of some sort.

You don't get that real generative experience with other people. And my guess is, and I hate to blame social media because everybody blames social media for everything. But my guess is, is so much of the world these days is about this transactional late nature. I can just swipe to the next person. I can just go to the next video.

Something new will be fed to me. Um, And I think there's this expectation of immediacy and there's this expectation of like, what am I getting from this situation, which I think is antithetical to the way that we actually operate as human beings. We are by nature, community oriented and collaborative individuals.

And if you can really think about like, well, what are the inherent. Qualities and, uh, nature that we can bring to bring to the forefront when engaging with somebody else. Well, then it becomes really much. I think a simpler equation. If people are like, well, I don't know how to deal with this meeting. It was this difficult conversation that I have to show up to next.

Well, if you can just show up with curiosity and with compassion and listen. It opens the doors to so much possibility that just simply would not be available. Otherwise.

Roger: I love that you brought up social media because it's that, that dopamine hit we get from that reading that next tweet or looking at that next video, whereas like, have you tried dopamine?

in the interaction you get with someone else. Like when you connect with the heart and the head with someone else, have you tried that dopamine hit? That's really good, man. I think there's something, um, you know, more powerful than what we get from social media. Yet we know social media can be more predictive in delivering that, that.

That dopamine hit than what we can get from other people.

Nicholas: Um, yeah, and my, guess here too, is it, it's not just dopamine, right. And you know, I'm not a neurobiologist and like my knowledge set on this is a little bit limited, but like, you know, neuroepinephrine, uh, oxytocin, that feel good feeling that we get when we're actually connecting with somebody else in a meaningful way, like that, that hug feeling that we get, like, that's what I'm going for, like, and that lasts a hell of a lot longer than dopamine ever will.

Like that's the problem with dopamine is like, you're always trying to replenish it or re refactor it by new experiences. There's that seeking experience, which I think is again, inherently built into how we are as humans. Like as hunter gatherers out there in the wild, like that served us really, really well.

Right. It allowed us to figure out like, you know, okay, what is the nutrient source that I can take and keep me going for the next thing? Like if I have to chase after an animal or something like that, like that powered that type of experience. But when you come back home to the cave or to the village, That dopamine isn't really what's really going to drive you.

It's the, it's the other neurobiological chemicals that are happening with our experience that helps make us feel a sense of belonging and connection with other people or connection with ourselves. And that's really what I try to encourage for folks is like, yeah, chase your dopamine all you want.

That's a, that's a. A singular experience, but if you're what you're really trying to do is build community and draw connection with other people. If you're trying to solve for that loneliness epidemic that we're experiencing that requires actual presence with other people and letting your guard down and being vulnerable and sharing in meaningful ways.

Roger: Yeah, I really appreciate that correction because you're right. It's not, it's not just that moment of connection. It's really being in community and being relationship that has a lot more long term and a stronger feeling for sure. So what or who inspired you to have the superhero power of the art of listening?

Nicholas: That's a good question. I mean, It's funny because when you threw this up in the, in the emails before the call, I was trying to track back and think about like, well, where does this actually originate from, you know, I think for me, it probably was born out of extreme social anxiety and discomfort growing up.

I grew up in a pretty abusive environment. Uh, I was not like the other kids that I grew up with for multiple different reasons, and I never really quite felt like I fit in, uh, in those environments that I was in and now looking back on it, it's like it's pretty obvious what was going on and why those things were occurring.

But I think what it, it, it. Created for me was a deep curiosity in human psychology and how people function and work because I noticed that so many people around me kind of operated differently. Like my brain is wired differently than a lot of people, like they call it neurodiversity these days. But back then, you know, when I was in my teens, like there wasn't language around this.

There was, you know, ADD, maybe they talked about that a little bit, but that was about the extent of it. Um, so for me, I think it was, it was born out of a need to try to better understand the world around me. So like listening became my default as opposed to like speaking. I was a little bit of a shy kid for the largest part of my childhood.

And a lot of the time when I actually spent doing was just listening and observing how other quote unquote normal people behaved so that I could mirror or mimic that. So I could have a fighting chance of. Seemingly being normal, normal, that led to early, uh, exposure to like things like documentary film.

I remember when I was in middle school, like I shot my first documentary film. I can't remember what the actual event was, but it was on racism. And this was in central Pennsylvania. And I was interviewing kids in the library of our middle school, talking about their experiences with race and othering.

And I remember. Like having this, you know, VHS tape deck camera, uh, and looking at people through the, the, the little viewfinder and having these conversations with folks and realizing that through powerful questions and by really holding space for somebody's story and narrative, it creates this sense of connection that you just don't get in normal everyday life.

And I think for me, that was a bit of the aha moment. And ever since then, it was essentially like one thing after another, leading me to opportunities to hold space and to, to, to cultivate listening. Um, After I was no longer quite as awkward and quite as introverted as I was when I was a kid, then it kind of turned into this other thing where, you know, I could hold space for people that were dealing with a difficult traumatic event.

I could have a business meeting with somebody and really deeply understand like what their pain points were and what they were trying to solve for so that me as a consultant, I could kind of wedge myself in there and offer some sort of a solution. Uh, later on now as a consultant. Coach and as a facilitator for mindfulness, obviously it helps quite a bit.

But yeah, I think it, I think it was born out of almost a deficit of a sense of belonging and connection with others. And it was cultivated as a way to try to learn how to be with others and be in community with others.

Roger: Thank you for sharing that. The, the, the streak of vulnerability is, uh, is, is continued there in that story.

So thank you for sharing that. And it, it, it makes a lot of sense. I, um, um, and thinking about my own, my own path and my own, um, experience with not feeling worthy, Um, I, for me it was a, it is a different direction. Like I was trying to get attention. Mm-Hmm. and so I would do things that would get me attention.

Um, but that was probably because I was, um, not getting the attention that I wanted. Whereas I could see in, in your situation, you might not want that attention that was gonna become an at you if you, if you, you've talked more than you listened.

Nicholas: Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. And I learned early on that it was much safer to be quiet and to ask questions and to offer ideas or to offer suggestions.

Now, obviously, as I got older, I realized that there's an immense amount of value in being able to express yourself fully and completely. But, you know, from those early fundamental stages, I think that's really what cultivated that superpower that then kind of attached to this hypervigilance, uh, that was not great, but I think it has also served me pretty well as I've gotten older.

It was designed at that time to kind of keep me safe and always kind of looking out for warning signals or like gestures or, you know, different tells that somebody might have that might indicate danger or lack of safety, uh, or to try to read between the lines of what somebody was saying. Cause a lot of times the messages that I was getting were quite mixed in my household.

But as I got older, I was able to really utilize that and hone that and almost cultivate more of an intuition around like, well, what's the opportunity to ask the powerful question, what's the opportunity to like encourage somebody to share in a meaningful way to really get at the bottom of what's going on for somebody.

Roger: So in case you were happen to be talking to someone who probably talked more than they listened and have those, you know, certain muscles that are well developed and need to develop other muscles, maybe named Roger. Um, do you have a framework or a process that you follow when you're using your superhero power of the art of listening?

Nicholas: Good question. Um, probably though. I think it's more intuitive at this point. You know, I think it does go back to this idea of arriving with curiosity and compassion, you know, both for myself and the other person so much of what I'm doing even in this call right now. You know, not being self aware in the sense of like, Oh, let me be careful about what I say, or let me like, be careful to frame this in just a certain way.

But just even just noticing what's happening in my experience in the moment, you know, so like, as I'm sitting here right now, I noticed that I'm actually feeling pretty relaxed. You know, the heart rate isn't racing like it normally would be if I was trying to be a certain way. Um, you know, I feel like.

I've been able to cultivate this process of just grounding and arriving to what is first before then sharing or engaging with somebody else. Um, for other people that maybe don't have that process, I think, you know, at first, before you even get into the conversation, having an intention for how you want to be, not what you want to get out of that conversation necessarily, but how you want to be, I think is really important.

I ran into this actually just yesterday. I had a very difficult conversation with a colleague. And I even started the conversation by saying, I have no agenda. I have not made a decision on anything. I'm arriving here with curiosity and compassion, and I just want to create a space where we can explore what comes next.

And I think setting that intention, being really clear about. You know, what is important and what would success look like in this experience together, I think, is a great place for somebody to start. And even just speaking that out loud, I think, can disarm somebody and can create a little bit more of a connection because the person on the other end of that conversation is likely having a, a, What, what's this conversation going to be?

Am I in trouble? Like what's the repercussions that are going to happen after this conversation. So if you can arrive to that conversation with a sense of curiosity and compassion and vulnerability, it just allows everybody to kind of get on the same page a lot quicker from there. You know, I think. I am always looking at the impulses that I have to try to fix or to solve or to offer wisdom of some sort.

And I think through my coach training that I've done over the years, what I've learned is that holding space is way more valuable than asking questions or offering advice. And as a fully admitted man in America, like the way I was taught Trained was to fix things. You know, we're, we're out there to try to solve problems.

And I've learned from my wife and from other people in my life, that really the more important thing is to allow people to be heard, not to try to fix their problems. So if you can start there of like, have I given somebody the space to be heard? Have I really, truly heard what they're saying? And can I reflect that back to them in a way that resonates with them?

That's going to go a lot farther than any bits of wisdom or any advice that you're going to be able to give somebody. So that would be another principle that I would really root on. And then I think the other piece to it, I think, is compassion, both for yourself and for other people. Like, I say random stuff all the time that I wish I didn't say.

You know, and like, Offering myself compassion in that moment and understanding that like, okay, there was probably something internally that wasn't really being addressed that drove me to say that thing. Uh, or maybe I didn't pause long enough just to like gather my thoughts so that I can express myself and articulate myself in a way that I really would like to.

I mean, that's, that's easier said than done. That takes a lot of practice. And I think that itself is a superpower of just being able to pause as Victor Frankl is often misquoted as saying, you know, it's, it's that gap between stimulus and response is where we find our freedom. So really trying to expand that gap a little bit, not just for yourself, but for other people.

So that you can have the ability to be free in that moment, I think is like a really fundamental part of what I would consider to be a superpower around. Listening.

Roger: Thank you for, for sharing those steps. What I, there's so much goodness there. The, this idea of stating intent reminds me of the Stephen M. R.

Covey book called the speed of trust, where it breaks out the four elements of trust of intent, integrity, competence, and, and, or I'm sorry, capabilities and results, and everyone can see. Your integrity. They can see your capabilities. They can see the results, but they can never see intent. And yet intent is the thing that gets us sideways so often in these conversations when we're assuming intent.

And, you know, humans are not good at predicting intent, probably because there's just so many variables. Well, let's take those variables off the table by stating intent. And then you were talking about coming to the conversation with, you know, building that relationship, building the, in the other person, understanding where they're coming from and what's important to them.

And maybe it's not. Your advice, maybe it's not your experience, but giving them space, creating and holding that container for them to be able to explore their ideas and come up with their suggestions for themselves. So much more valuable. What I've learned in my coaching program that, you know, they're, it's very easy to come up with advice for other people, but it's kind of like, someone's going to go out and run a marathon and you're going to give them your size 11 shoes.

And they're. You know, they need side seven. Well, that's a lot of blisters in that first mile. And then they have to run another 25. They're not going to be happy with you. And so the idea of giving advice is so attractive and because we want to help, but in giving advice, it's bad advice. It doesn't work for that person.

You're actually damaging the relationship. You're not helping the relationship. Um, so such goodness there. So thank you for sharing all that. Yeah, it's my pleasure. What is the impact on you? When your superhero power has had a positive impact on others.

Nicholas: Oh, I mean, it's incredibly validating, you know what I mean?

Like so much of it. I think for me, it's well, you know, just take it to take it a step back too. And maybe this is in the language of coaching, uh, that I think a lot of people may have encountered, you know, so much of this for me, it's like, I believe inherently that people have the tools that they need within them to, to be the type of people that they want to be.

Like inherently we have everything we already need. It's just a matter of like, can we express that? Can we bring that to the forefront and allow that to be part of our, our day to day experience? So for me in a coaching relationship or in an interview, or just even in a casual conversation, my goal is not to like imbue that person with my wisdom is to learn their wisdom.

Right. It's to pull it out of them in some way. And I think if we can help others, if we can help each other have the agency to be our full selves and to show up as our full selves and not in like show up with your full self in the way that is often talked about in corporate America, which I think is like problematic at best, but like literally just allowing yourself to be.

However, you are in that moment and know that that's enough, like, that's the real gift that we can offer the world and to go back to my kind of higher level mission of like alleviating human suffering at scale, like, to me, that's the key to it, right? Can we allow people to feel that they have the agency to alleviate their own suffering?

Can we help people show up as their full selves and whatever capacity they're in at that moment and help them understand that they're enough. Like if we can do that, then I feel like it opens up all these possibilities that just wouldn't be available to us. Otherwise, and we don't need to insert ourselves into other people's lives unless maybe they ask us and say, Hey, can you give me some advice based on your life experience about how I might approach this?

But even with those questions, my initial immediate reaction is like, well, What do you think? You know, like, what, what, what do you think that I might say? Or what do you feel like there might be value in what I have to share? And then I'll might offer something, or I might have offer a pearl of wisdom, but it's only after consent has been gained.

Roger: And I think you just answered this question. But the next question was going to be is how is your superhero power of the art of listening connected with your purpose? And you're just talking about your mission to alleviate suffering at scale. How do you connect those dots?

Nicholas: Yeah. Well, I mean, to me, they're intrinsic, right?

You know, I think that. Being present to the experience of others is a critical component to being able to even get close to helping alleviate suffering for other people. And what I mean by alleviate suffering is like, I don't mean necessarily having a modality or a practice or some intervention that you're offering somebody that suddenly alleviates their pain.

In fact, I almost think it's the opposite of that. It's more like helping people own and really. integrate their pain and suffering in a way that is agency, uh, generating. I don't want to alleviate people's pain and just wash it away and get rid of it for somebody. What I want them to do is find a way to integrate and to make it into fuel for something new.

And, you know, for me, listening is a huge component to that. Like if you can't truly arrive and listen to somebody and, and hear, like deeply hear what it is they're going through, you have no hope being able to support them and help them. Uh, all you're doing is performing some sort of like gesture that in the end is probably more damaging than it is helpful.

And, you know, you mentioned this idea of hope earlier. I mean, I think that's really, for me, the crux of it is like, I want to offer people the hope that whatever pain and suffering that they're going through right now can have purpose and meaning and that they can integrate it in a way that gives them strength and gives them agency to, to really fully arrive to their experience.

Roger: I'm really happy I asked the question because I thought it was obvious, but no, you added to it. So I'm, I'm glad, I'm, I'm glad you're able to do that. And I love the idea of not just alleviating suffering and leave them, you know, sort of the tabula rasa of, of, you know, to, to either add or subtract at that moment, but to actually help them create the container so they can alleviate their own suffering and then build upon that to be in a better place.

Nicholas: Yeah, yeah. And there's lessons from Buddhism and Stoicism here, you know, and like that's so much the underpinning of the work I do with my clients. It's rooted in positive psychology, Buddhist philosophy and Stoic philosophy. And the reasons why I draw those from those is I think it gives us really interesting rubric for someone like if you were to assume as the Buddhist philosophy espouses is that.

Life is suffering, right? It's just a fundamental part of existence is suffering. If you just try to get rid of that or alleviate that, it's, it's a false hope. It's a false promise. And in fact, I think what it actually does is it robs us of the lessons and it robs us of the knowledge that suffering really allows us to experience.

So for me, it's really like, can I help someone by modeling it in the way that I. Live my life, can I help someone develop a new relationship to their suffering as not adversarial or something to get rid of, but really something to be curious about and get immersed within because I think that I believe that that is where the real wisdom of life is, is in understanding how suffering is How you experience suffering and then what you can actually do with that and what choices you can make once you have grasp of that.

Roger: And, and a conversation that you and I had a while ago about purpose and finding purpose around this experience that I've, I've only witnessed through the, these conversations in this podcast about hearing the inspiration unmet need. And that unmet need is suffering, but out of that suffering, they found the thing that That brings joy.

That brings meaning that is enabling them to, um, go out into the world and do good things or great things. Um, it's, it's following that path. You're just talking about about making meaning of suffering in order to, um, To live a more fulfilled life.

Nicholas: Yeah. Spot on, you know, and it's interesting, you know, often we hear this idea of like finding our purpose and as all of us as if purpose is an end destination or a goal to get to, and I actually think that that's a misnomer, you know, The way I think about purpose is it's a journey in a process.

It's a way of being, and it's a lagging measure of the micro choices that we make all along the way that hopefully leads up to something that's aligned with our values and our core beliefs and our boundaries and non negotiables and our habits and routines and all the ways that we want to be in the world.

It's a lagging measure. You know, purpose I think is an activity that we do. Right. It's not someplace that we get to. And meaning, I think is maybe a little bit different. Like we make meaning out of our experiences. And that's something that happens along the way. Uh, but the two of those things together, I think are really a powerful set of heuristics to be able to say, like, am I living in alignment with my values and within my purpose that I've stated, which is important to me?

Uh, am I making meaning out of this experience in a way that's aligned with the type of person that I want to be? Yes.

Your essence and your actual core being needs. And basically I think what you end up doing is you end up creating this environment where your needs are, needs are never really going to be able to get met. And I think that schism is, you know, maybe what's called moral injury in a lot of ways. Uh, the difference between the stated needs and the actual ability to have those needs met.

I think that's what causes a lot of pain for people. And a lot of times when you just talk about it, you know, from a standpoint of suffering, for example, the tendency, and this is just hardwired in the way that we are as humans is to avoid suffering and avoid pain or grasping on to pleasure. And when I talk to people, just kind of bring it back to like the layoff conversation.

When I talk to people who have been laid off, who are struggling, typically what it is, is like, they have not been able to release the image and the vision of the way things were supposed to be. And they haven't really being able to fully integrate into their experience, the pain and the discomfort of change.

And what I'll often talk to people about is like, what is the story that you're telling yourself about the way things are supposed to be in this moment? Are you telling yourself a story that You're supposed to be suffering. Are you telling yourself a story that, you know, you're never going to have it better than this?

Are you telling yourself a story that you've done something wrong? And there's maybe a guilt or a shame involved. You're being punished for a reason. I feel like these are really, really important questions for people to grapple with and all of it kind of goes back to that piece around self awareness.

It's like, well, what am I on this planet to do? What is my actual. Meaning in life, right? What is the purpose that I'm going to want to live? Um, and I think these are really existential questions that people really probably don't have enough opportunity to ask themselves.

Roger: So speaking of a question that people don't often ask themselves, what do you know to be true about the art of listening?

Nicholas: Well, I know to be sure that it is a, an iterative process and it's, it's not something that I feel like you can ever quite nail, uh, as a skillset. I think it's an iterative process, particularly because you're involving other human beings and other people.

Um, It requires calibration and it requires a different awareness of both yourself and other people in order for it to really be effective. Um, I also know that it's something that you can turn on yourself in a, in a positive way, the very underpinning of my mindfulness practice is essentially listening, not from an auditory standpoint, but just listening to the signals that are arriving by the processes that are already occurring all by themselves.

What is happening in my body? What is happening in my heart? What is the quality of my thoughts? Um, from that place of awareness and that place of listening, then you have agency to be able to make choices. So that also is an iterative process and an ongoing thing. You know, it's always evolving. So I think, you know, when we, we think about.

Skill sets. And we think about ways that we can train ourselves or train other people to be better humans, helping people understand that it's not like a one and done solution. It's not like a quick weekend seminar or a weekend retreat that you can take and say, okay, great. Now I'm a great listener. It's, it's an art.

It's a process that requires an iterative experience over time. And a refinement over time. And my hope is in 45 years or 50 years, I'll be in a better listener than I am now. And I can look back and see a trajectory of growth over time. Uh, that is born out of a willingness to fail and a willingness to try not to.

To have some specific end goal in mind, but to just be rooted in the practice and focus on that next step, that next question, that next opportunity to be present.

Roger: Thank you for that. What did you believe early on about the art of listening that you've come to learn is not true?

Nicholas: I think early on I was naive and assuming that the first thing that somebody says is actually what they mean. Um, I, Probably had a bit of a blindness to taking things at face value. And this is something that for my entire life, I struggled with was, and maybe it, maybe it's a little autism. Maybe it's a little bit of like neuro spiciness that's involved here.

I think it actually was born out of trauma. Quite, quite frankly, like, Trauma, the overlap of trauma and neurodiversity and things like ADHD, the Venn diagram of that is really murky. And a lot of times things are misdiagnosed as being one thing or another. But like in hindsight, now looking back, it's like, I realized so much of my experience up until say like my mid twenties was about self protection, about not being too public or too visible, keeping myself small and, I was not really great at reading someone's expression or somebody's like, uh, demeanor and knowing that what I was receiving as a signal was like accurate, uh, there was a lot of mistrust there and there was a lot of just like ambiguity around, like the way somebody would say something or the way somebody would do something.

And like, the question that would always come up for me when somebody would say something is like, well, what do you really mean? And. I think that actually made it really useful as a documentarian because a lot of times I would, I would not settle for an original question. I would ask multiple questions as a follow up after that.

Um, but on early days, I think what a lot of times I would happen is like somebody would say something or do something. I would take it at face value and then I would catch my, I would find myself caught in like a bad situation because, you know, I wasn't being curious enough to what was really going underneath, going on underneath there.

And it wasn't really attuning myself to what that person's experience was out of a sense of othering and out of a sense of fear. So over time, as I got older, I think what I came to realize was that listening is a process. Uh, it's not just about asking a question and then getting a response back and being like, okay, great.

I got what I needed out of that. It's a process of calibrating. How you receive that question, what comes up for you when you receive that particular response, um, hearing what somebody is saying and asking the hard questions underneath that of like, well, what's actually driving that? Or what is it that you're really saying there?

Or what is it you're trying to express? You haven't been able to express yet. And I think it's, it's a deepening of the experience and a deepening of the process that maybe I came to later on in life. Um, that, that probably rubs up against my earlier impression of like what it means to really listen. Um, I think I was listening previously to find clues about, um, whether it's safe or not.

And I think as I got older, I let go of this idea of safety altogether. And I think that that sense of vulnerability actually gives you a lot more safety, uh, than maybe other ways of being and being able to be vulnerable and to relate to other people and to continue asking questions, even if there may be uncomfortable, I think opens up vulnerability and other people and allows you to connect a much more deep and meaningful ways, uh, than you were, if you were just to take those original responses at face value.

Roger: I love the amount of clarity you have around that answer, and how deep, how deeply resonant that, that, that response is to that question. You've, you've done work in this space. It's really clear.

Nicholas: Yeah. I've done a little bit. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. You know, to, to me, to me, it's, um, it comes back to self awareness, you know, I think it comes back to that at a fundamental level.

And I think that is the, the big work of my life is becoming self aware. Understanding what my initial responses are and where those are coming from. Why I might say a certain, certain thing or ask a certain question. It shows up in my relationship with my wife on a daily basis. I will hedge around an expressed need and ask a dozen questions of her instead of just expressing a need.

And we joke about this all of the time. It's like, Hey, so like, uh, What time are you planning on waking up in the morning? Like, do you have a busy morning tomorrow? Um, like, do you have anything important that you need to do first off? She's like, what is it that you want? It's like, well, I just want to spend some time with you first thing in the morning.

Is that available? You know, but you know, asking a dozen questions to get to that is kind of a default from my childhood. And I think what I've learned over the years is like, when I noticed myself asking her multiple questions before I've gotten the first answer. It's like, oh, there's an unexpressed need that's happening right there.

And I think that for me, it goes right back to the listening piece is like, that is the salve for a lot of that disconcernation or discomfort within my experience of like, if I can just be present and listen, and if I can learn how to express my needs carefully and clearly, we're going to have a lot better time together, you know?

Roger: Nicholas, are you ready for the lightning round?

Nicholas: Yeah, let's do it.

Roger: Okay, fill in the blank. The art of listening is? The art of listening is a process. Who in your life provides the art of listening for you?

Nicholas: Oh, definitely my wife, hands down. She's probably one of the best listeners I've ever met. And I think she has really encouraged me to, to expand my listening skills over the years as well.

Roger: Yeah. There's a reason why they call them our life partners. That's right. Is there a book or movie you recently consumed or watched that you would recommend that has the art of listening as a theme?

Nicholas: So a book that I've read two books, actually, that I've read recently. One is from strength, the strength by Arthur C.

Brooks. Uh, it's all about, uh, midlife, uh, transition and basically reclaiming strength in the second chapter of your life. So much of that book for me is about. Paying attention to and listening to the signals that are coming up around scarcity or obsolescence or whatever. It might be these terrible stories.

We tell ourselves about midlife and really trying to hear your own experience of like, well, what is it you want to put out there in the world? And what is it that is meaningful to you? Another book that I read by Judson Brewer, unwinding anxiety, Really brilliant book and a really brilliant process of of understanding the role that anxiety plays in one's life.

Judson Brewer talks about it as a habit that we cultivate to help avoid discomfort. And part of the process that he talks about is understanding, uh, the trigger, the behavior and the reward of your habit loop, uh, or your anxiety loop and understanding And listening to the signals at the early stage can hopefully allow you to avoid these habit loops and these, these experiences and really integrate in a more meaningful way.

They're not directly about listening per se, but I think like the themes there are pretty resonant.

Roger: Well, I think it goes back to being able to, to, to listen to yourself.

Nicholas: That's right.

Roger: What is one thing that gets in your way of your superhero power?

Nicholas: Oh, the fix it mindset, you know, for sure.

I mean, that's still very much alive in me. You know, I, I want to help, you know, I'm a helper. Uh, another photo that I got behind me is. As Mr. Rogers, you know, like in one of his big sayings in life is always look for the helpers, you know, and I always really love that. Like he was a real touchstone for me growing up as a child and really, it was like a surrogate father figure for me in a lot of ways, the default for me is like wanting to desperately resolve somebody else's suffering.

And oftentimes the impulse for me is to do that for them as opposed to like trying to help them find the agency and find the resourcefulness within themselves in order to be able to do that. The ironic thing is, is that now I'm a coach and the whole underpinning of a coaching methodology is exactly to help resource other people, uh, as opposed to trying to solve their problems.

So I get to practice it on a daily basis. Luckily. It's awesome.

Roger: What word or phrase describes what the art of listening feels like when it's had a positive impact?

Nicholas: Nourishing, I think, is the word that comes up for me. You know, when I Have successfully held a container and been able to connect with people on a meaningful way and to really allow them to be vulnerable and to open themselves up in a way that they might not have been able to.

Otherwise, to me, that nourishes my soul. It gives me permission to be vulnerable as well. And it kind of validates all the work that I do. So in some ways, I guess, like, you know, the art of listening and the, the, the superpower that I have is actually kind of a selfish one, because what it, what it's really doing is it's, it's feeding that sense of interconnectedness and those letting those mirror neurons fire for myself and making me feel a sense of connection with other people.

Roger: And as we were talking earlier about this connection between unmet need, a talent that. Attends to that need and then that well developed talent becoming having some mastery around that talent and doing it for others. Um, I think I think there's that strong connection between those things that we do for others actually does so much more for us because of that.

connection. And maybe there's other things that, that of course, there's other things that play into that. Um, but I think a lot of these, you know, I, I, I sort of question whether there truly are extrinsic, um, motivations or is everything intrinsic.

Nicholas: So, yeah, I mean, I think that's a very deep question just by itself.

Like we are motivated people.

Roger: Yeah, exactly. We can go deep on that one. So if a listener wanted to ask you a question or follow up with, with you. Where would you point them to?

Nicholas: Yeah, well, first of all, thank you so much. Um, you can find me online relatively easy. NicholasWhittaker. com. I have a mailing list and a newsletter that I send out semi regularly.

I'm trying to get it up to a monthly, monthly newsletter, but, uh, don't hold me to that. So NicholasWhittaker. com. You can also find me on LinkedIn. I practically live on LinkedIn. So feel free to follow me there. Let me know if anything really resonated with you. And then, you know, my startup changing work, you can find us at changing work.

org. If you're interested in conscious business and conscious leadership and want to help change work from the inside out, as we've been talking about all day today, uh, check us out there. Uh, you get a 30 day free membership, uh, by joining and you can use the coupon code podcast 40 in order to get, uh, a discount of an extra two months off of your membership.

Roger: Nicholas, thank you so much for showing up in your authentic self for being vulnerable for entertaining my, my, my, my silly questions and sometimes not so silly questions. And really like, like, to some extent I'll joke. In my coaching program, people will suggest that I use these episodes as some of my coaching hours.

And I'm, you know, my first response is, well, I'm not, I'm not coaching the other person. What I'm not realizing is, no, I'm getting coached because I am learning through these conversations and they mean so much to me. They're so valuable. And today was, was not an exception. Thank you very much for everything you taught me today.

And I really appreciate your time, your vulnerability, and you sharing your superhero power of the art of listening.

Nicholas: Uh, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much, Roger. And thanks for even just creating the container for these conversations to happen. It's so important.

Roger: My pleasure.

Nicholas: Okay. Take care. Bye bye. Thanks so much.

Be good.

Roger: Okay. Nicholas is quite the role model for vulnerability and authenticity online. And I so appreciate him bringing those qualities to this conversation today. I love the clarity and conviction behind his thoughts, and I'm grateful for his experience, what I learned from talking with him today, reflecting on this conversation, the question I'm asking myself now is how can I be better at developing the routine.

Of coming into conversations with an intention to enhance and enrich the relationship. I'm curious to see how the outcomes of the conversations will be different.

If you like this episode please forward it on to a friend who you think would enjoy it.

“What Do You Know To Be True?” is a Three Blue Pens production and I'm your host,  Roger Kastner.

We're recording on the ancestral lands of the Duwamish and Saquamish people. To discover the ancestral lands of the indigenous people whose land you may be on you can go to https://native-lands.ca

Okay. Be well, my friend.