For the last four episodes I’ve talked about language as a technology. How language is not just something you use, it's very essence of being human — it’s what sets us apart from other life forms and what we use to construct our reality.

And I’ve stressed that you need to see it directly, not just understand it intellectually. Seeing it is like riding the bicycle; understanding is just knowing about the bicycle. We want to ride. Naturally, this medium lends itself to the understanding part more than it does to the seeing and getting part. And the questions I’ve received confirm that.

In this episode, I turn over the subject again so you can see it from different angles. I do that through six questions — some from listeners, two from a master's class I lectured, and two are check questions from my own personal journey, ones I’ve asked before and keep asking.

We turn over word versus feeling, story versus reality, and the objection I get every single time: isn't this "listening" thing just a perceptual lens in cleverer clothes? No, it’s not, and I show you why.

Show notes:

The six questions:

1. "Language as a technology is interesting — but what's the point? Isn't the explaining and making of things the whole thing?" (from Episode 8)
2. "Aren't feelings important as guides? How does this sit with Martha Beck, who says to follow your intuition the way you'd track a rhino?" (from Episode 9)
3. "I keep my word to other people. But the promises I make to myself, I break constantly — and nobody knows. Why is my word to myself worth so little?" (from Episode 9)
4. "In my case the story is the reality — my boss genuinely is undermining me, and I've got the emails. How does this apply when I'm actually right?" (from Episode 10)
5. "How is your 'listening' any different from perception being a lens you see the world through? Isn't it the same thing, sounding clever?" (from Episode 11)
6. "Isn't shifting my listening just letting people off the hook — excusing bad behaviour by choosing to hear it more generously?" (from Episode 11)

Once again, this isn't another thing to believe. It's a technology you can use and test, and by using it you get better at dealing with what's real and what matters.

📩 Written companion on Substack, under my name.

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Three times I badly misheard someone — a heart attack, a missing T-shirt, an honest question I took as a trap. The problem wasn't what I was listening to. It was what I was listening for.

This episode turns the language theme around: instead of what you put out, we look at what you take in — and how that affects what you put out. In other words, how the machinery of listening shapes the reality you live in, and how your listening gets revealed by the things you say.

This is not about active listening, or being aware of biases, but something deeper. It’s a look into the phenomenon of listening itself. Not hearing, but listening — the meaning you make from what you hear — and how that can block people from getting through to you, or you from getting through to them.

We often here that “it’s all about perception” and “it’s all about communication”. Well, both are all about listening. So listen up.

Show notes

This is the fourth and final episode in a series on language — we had language as a technology, followed by working with your given word, then the stories we tell when we are not in line with our word. Here we turn it around to look at listening.

We look at the difference between hearing and listening — not active listening, something deeper — and why you've almost never heard what someone said to you. How that impacts your reality, and what you can do to change your whole listening framework.

Topics covered include:

• Hearing versus listening
• Listening as a construct
• The context that listening creates
• Political polarisation as a listening problem
• How to consciously create an empowered listening context
• A practical exercise to take away

Chapters below.

If this landed — not just made sense, but landed — subscribe, rate and review wherever you're listening, and share it with someone who'd benefit. Written companion on Substack (under my name). Ways to work with me are in the links.

A written companion is on Substack under my name. If you want to take it further, there are ways to work with me in the links.

If something here landed, please share it with others who might also benefit.

Subscribe, rate and review wherever you’re listening.

You didn't do what you said you'd do — and you offer a reason. The Wi-Fi bombed. The traffic was mad. Your team lost; you complain about the ref’s blunder, and explain what the coach should have done at halftime. A law you dislike gets passed; you opine that the country's going to the dogs.

It all feels like it matters, like what you say will make a difference. It doesn’t. None of it. Your life continues in circles. You spend your life trapped in the same cycle, wondering why. Here’s here. None of those things — your reasons, your complaints, explanations, opinions — have any bearing on what’s real. They simply don’t matter. Yet you invest so much time and energy in them.

The promise of this show is to help you deal with what’s real and what matters. In this episode I show you exactly what that means, how your verbal actions like the ones mentioned above take you in the opposite direction, and what you can do to stop that spiral. It’s the most weight-bearing episode of them all.

Show notes

The mind seeks to make meaning out of things that happen, or don’t happen. When we mistake that meaning-making for reality, we lose our ability to impact that reality. We live with a lot of noise and no forward movement. We can’t go in circles forever, so eventually we spiral downwards. We react with more explaining. With more story. This episode is about exiting the bad neighbourhood of story.

Topics covered include:

• Why story is the opposite of presence, and why people tune out the moment you start one
• The three universal tells that you've left reality behind and entered the realm of story
• What it costs you: the hours poured into narration, and the low hum of grievance that drags a day down
• Why reality doesn't care about your opinion — and where expressing a view actually does matter
• The unglamorous alternative: deal with the fact, change your language, and do this relevance check
• How to guide someone else out of story without becoming insufferable about it
• Why we love story and how we defend our right to tell our story
• How this augments, rather than replaces, CBT, Stoicism and mindfulness

This follows on from Episode 9, on drawing a line when you give your word: your story arises whenever you deviate from the line. In the next episode, we’ll flip it around: not what you say, but what you hear.

A written companion is on Substack under my name. If you want to take it further, there are ways to work with me in the links.

If something here landed, please share it with others who might also benefit.

Subscribe, rate and review wherever you’re listening.