Dec 23, 2022
Have you noticed how your co-workers or team seem to have difficulty listening well to each other, having different understandings of what is important? Do you want to know how you can help a group listen to what is actually emerging in discussions?
Visualize it.
In today’s episode, our guest talks about how listening is a way for you to recognize something bigger inside yourself and the group. Visualizing while listening is something you can do to help fully grasp what is being said and what is emerging in the group.
Listening is an art where you can visualize it and see its beauty.
So how do you do this?
Visual Facilitator, Vanessa Jane Smith is from New Zealand with a background in communications, organizational development, training, and coaching. She blends leadership coaching & visual facilitation creating an approach which creatively disrupts routine thinking, inspiring human potential development. She works with groups to generate new ideas, stories and approaches, aligning diverse interests.
Vanessa has facilitated high profile conferences such as The Vatican’s Multi-Denominational Conference on Religions and SDGs, Italy; New Economy for Social Innovation (NESI), Spain; co-creating the new story in a Human Potential development training at Teach for America, USA. She has also worked in breakthrough Creative Leadership Programmes with the Oil and Gas Industries and Banking Sectors throughout Europe.
In this episode, Vanessa shares the big impact and effective results of listening, whether you’re listening to someone, a group of people, or maybe your team. Vanessa presents to you a ground-breaking and unique way of grasping the message of what you listen to through visualization. She also shares her experience on how she came to notice the power of listening and discover the ‘listening and visualization’ technique.
“It's such a magic field. So much is possible when we listen.”
- Vanessa Jane Smith
Listen IN Notes:
01:11 - “Listening beyond the words”: When did Vanessa first notice the power of listening
06:41 - It became a superpower: What she learned about listening that she didn't realize before
08:42 - Vanessa shares how listening changes your perspective and understanding of things
11:02 - “This isn't about the pictures, this is about the quality of listening”: Vanessa talks about how she learned her listening and visualization technique
19:21 - “Feeling inside and then feeling outside”: Vanessa shares how to apply listening in big organizations
23:07 - Drawing on a blank sheet: How can you visualize listening?
26:55 - “There is such a power in this moment:” Vanessa tells us how listening is an open door to the different types of future
29:59 - Vanessa talks about the big impacts and results of listening to your team
33:37 - “Recognizing something more inside yourself”: Vanessa shares people’s realizations after doing the visual technique
38:08 - Vanessa’s message to you: Give it time. Give it space. Space is the great creator. And get out of the way of it. Let it be there, and then make sense of it.
39:38 - Today’s lesson: “Get out of your own way and become present without judgment.”
46:53 - Vanessa shares what are her BE THE CHANGE cards and how they can help you
Key Takeaways:
“I have learned that listening is almost multi-dimensional. It really is a superpower. It's a guide to what's going on, on the inside, as much as it is a guide to what's going on on the outside. It heals.” - Vanessa Jane Smith
“The key here is listening, and really listening beyond what you think is supposed to be there.” - Vanessa Jane Smith
“We're just not literally seeing a picture. We're all walking around with what someone said at the beginning of the day, although we might have forgotten. It's still there somehow.” - Vanessa Jane Smith
“If you're looking for some really bigger results, then you have to do the opposite of what you think you have to do as an event organizer, or whatever it is. And you have to sort of slow down and give people way more space to do this delicate work.” - Vanessa Jane Smith
“You're never going to create anything new if you stay in the center of yourself where everything is fixed, correct, and right.” - Vanessa Jane Smith
Notes/Mentions:
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