In a recent Training Unleased podcast, Evan Hackel and his guest Theresa Campbell discussed highly unusual, revolutionary techniques for becoming not just a good listener, but a great listener.

You will hear practical guidance on listening in this podcast – insights that you will not find anywhere else. You will want to spend some quality time watching it. Here are some highlights of their talk.

Theresa Describes How Most of Us Think about Listening

“I like to remind people that being a master of anything happens when the master knows that they’re forever the student,” Theresa told Evan. “So there’s the initial pressure of, `Oh, I’ve got to make sure I remember what he said or what she said.` But no, no, no, you’re a student and you’re just continuing to evolve and deepen your listening and your ability to connect with yourself and others. The thought to have is `I’m a student like everybody else.’ And that helps you relax into it.”

On Using all Five Senses to Listen

“Listening is not just what we hear,” Theresa told Evan. “I like people to remember that listening is a five-senses experience . . .  what are you seeing as this person says something to you? What are you feeling? What do you smell? What does that message taste like?”

Theresa – and this is unusual – believes that great listening also means focusing on your own reactions to what is being said.

“So not just what are you hearing,” she explained, “but what do you feel? What are you sensing? So when I teach people how to listen, if we can segue to that, there’s an acronym that I love that was taught to me by my first listening teacher. It’s SIER.”

Understanding Theresa’s SIER Structure

Here is what that acronym means . . .

  • S stands for sense, meaning what are you sensing, using all five senses
  • I stands for interpret, meaning that you interpret what you are taking in.
  • E stands for evaluate, meaning that you think about what you are taking in.
  • R stands for respond, meaning that you respond or react to what has been said to you.
How to Introduce Intuition into Great Listening

Theresa believes that great listening happens when people connect to much more than the words that are being said, Great listeners go on to connect with how they feel about what they are hearing, how they receive it, and how their bodies accept it.

“It’s the sixth sense,” Theresa told Evan. “You know, the sixth sense . . . What’s your intuition . . . what is that feeling . . . what is your body telling you? Because a lot of times, we’re not necessarily encouraged to listen to our feelings, right? That’s not professional! We want to keep the emotion out of it. And what I’m saying is you can become so proficient in hearing that you can have a visceral experience and trust that, even if everything somebody is saying sounds true, but something in you says, no, you can trust that. You can create a relationship with yourself and your capacity to listen to yourself.”

Theresa’s Offer to Members of the Training Unleashed Community

Theresa invites you to investigate the complimentary listening sessions that she offers through Her Life, Her Legacy.

“Oftentimes people don’t feel listened to,” she told Evan. “So I invite them to come into a space where they know someone’s going to listen to them. No judgment! I’d love to have a listening session with your listeners, and we can do that!”

Using Deep Listening in Training

Evan believes that Theresa’s ultra-effective listening approaches can help take training to higher levels. When you use them to connect more deeply with trainees, the entire training process can be optimized!

About Our Guest Theresa Campbell

Theresa Campbell is the founder and CEO of Her Life, Her Legacy, a leadership development organization dedicated to the power of deep listening. As a leadership coach, author, and life-long learner, she helps you find and listen to what matters, most.

Theresa, lovingly known by her clients as Coach T, serves humbly with an unwavering focus on service. She has over a decade’s worth of experience in the business and corporate world and has led multi-million dollar sales and marketing initiatives with a Fortune 500 organization (Ford). Her work has been featured in the likes of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Ford Motor Company, Women’s Executive Exchange of Central Florida and Journey by Afrotainment.

As a self-proclaimed, life-long learner, Theresa is committed to mastery. She’s a graduate of Michigan State University (Go Green!), received her MBA from Rollins College and is proudly coached by the world’s top leadership experts. Theresa believes that to be the best, one gets to learn from the best. It’s this attitude of growth, faith, and possibility that drives her mission in life.

She’s the proud author of three books. Her most recent work, Just Listen: Creating Confidence in Yourself, Others & God, is set to be released in the fall 2021.