The Practice of Active Listening. A book, and a set of workshops, about the how — not just the what.
Most of us already know we should listen better. What we were never taught is how to actually do it, on a Tuesday afternoon, with a spouse, a coworker, a customer, or a kid who finally wants to talk.
The Book
Lend an Ear teaches the moves through real scenarios: the vent, the hard news, the meeting that runs long, the teen in the car. It is built around the conversations you actually have, not a theory of communication.
It is practice-driven. The aim is muscle, not concept. You read a moment, you see the move, and then you go try it on someone you love before the day is out.
Try It Now
Listening is a posture before it is a script. Here are two small pieces of the practice you can feel right now.
When someone hands you a problem, the reflex is to solve it. Flip each card to see that reflex, then the line to try instead, reflecting the feeling back before you offer anything.
Everyone has a default way they listen under pressure. Find yours in a couple of minutes.
Most of us can’t stand more than a few seconds of quiet, so we jump in and fill it, often with the wrong thing. Imagine someone just said to you, “I just found out I have cancer.” Press Start and see how long you actually last before you want to speak.
Press Start, then sit with it.
“That’s how long fifteen seconds of silence feels. In a real conversation, that pause is where the other person finally says the true thing. Most of us fill it by second four.”
Real Moments
Not theory. These are the rooms the book actually walks into.
Workshops
The book is the solo practice. The workshops are the live one.
They are short and practice-first. Small groups run real drills, like leading a group and the graceful interrupt, and then debrief what landed and what did not. Less lecture, more reps.
They are built for teams, for churches and Bible-study leaders, and for clinics, anywhere people have to listen well under pressure.
In Development · Pre-Book Now
About
A doctor said something to me not long ago that I still think about. She had just walked me through a treatment plan, and I repeated it back to her, in my own words to be sure I had it right. She stopped mid-sentence. She's been practicing medicine for two decades, and she told me that what I had just done, simply saying the plan back to her, was something she almost never sees.
I thought about that sentence the whole drive home. There is little skill in repeating a treatment plan back to a doctor. It may be the simplest move in any conversation, and almost nobody does it. That gap, between knowing we should listen better and actually doing it, is what Lend an Ear is about: not another case for why listening matters, but the actual moves you can use on an ordinary Tuesday, with the people in front of you.
I'm Julie Bou. After receiving a Communication Arts degree over 30 years ago, I’ve spent my career helping people say what they mean and be understood. I started Bear In Mind Communications and then spent 17 years translating technical gibberish into everyday language that sells, persuades, educates, and trains. That doctor told me I should be teaching that skill to students. This book is me trying.
Contact
Press, bookstores, workshop bookings, or just to say hello.
Email julie.bou@bear-in-mind.com.