On this episode of The Fresh Start Family Show, Wendy and Terry interview Orly Israel, a self-described good listener in training. Orly shares his journey of realizing the power of self-control and choosing not to say mean things. He started The Listening Table, where he sits and listens to strangers, to practice his listening skills. Orly emphasizes the importance of listening in building strong relationships and offers tips for effective listening. He also discusses the viral video of a young boy sharing his story at The Listening Table and encourages everyone to practice empathy and create meaningful connections with others.
Episode Highlights:
- Self-control is key to avoiding fights and saying mean things.
- Building strong relationships requires good communication skills.
- The Listening Table provides a space for practicing listening skills and creating deeper connections.
- Anyone can become a good listener, and it doesn’t require professional training.
- Listening can have a positive impact on mental health and overall well-being.
Resources Mentioned:
Follow Orly on Instagram
Orly’s Youtube page
Some of Orly’s video viral reels:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpB8vPfgDCT/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CklvFiuAW4e/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CkopoZ0ACx2/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
https://www.instagram.com/reel/ClCprmRAXR2/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Not able to listen or want to read along with us?
Here is the episode transcript!
0:00:03 – (Wendy): Well, hello there, families, and welcome to a new episode. I am your host, Wendy Snyder, positive parenting educator and family life coach. And Terry and I are thrilled to be here today with Orly Israel, who is a self described good listener in training. After learning that self control was the key to avoiding fighting with his siblings, he started wondering why people chose to say mean things if everyone, for the most part, are in control of their own actions.
0:00:31 – (Wendy): As someone who spent lots of time on social media, he’d only see videos about communication skills when it came to relationships and work, but nothing about building friendships and strong family relationships and wanted to create that. He started his listening table after taking a communication class where the teacher said that learning how to communicate is like learning how to swim because you can read as many books on swimming as you’d like, but you can’t learn to swim without getting in the water.
0:00:57 – (Wendy): So the listening table was his water. He did over 60 listening tables before filming any of them and now makes his videos to show others that you don’t need to be a therapist or a mental health professional to be a good friend and that anyone can become a good listener. He also leads regular free online workshops on how to set up your own listening table. Welcome to the show, Orly. We’re so happy you’re here.
0:01:21 – (Orly): So glad to be here. And what a terrific introduction I should have you do more often for me.
0:01:28 – (Terry): Love it.
0:01:29 – (Wendy): Well, you’re pretty incredible, Orly. We do a lot of these interviews and I cannot tell you how excited I have been leading up to our interview today because we both just have deep admiration for what you’re doing. And it is so unique and cool and just fun. We love that you’re on the beach a lot. You’re not always on the beach, but you have been on the beach a lot. You happen to set up your listening tables a lot in the same town that our little girl does a lot of beach volleyball tournaments. And so we are just here to soak up all your wisdom today about listening. Because when it comes to what we do at fresh start family as a parenting organization, family life coaching organization, we know the power of listening.
0:02:14 – (Wendy): And so what you are doing is so important and just really meaningful. So thanks again for being here.
0:02:22 – (Orly): Such a pleasure. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. This is so fun. And I love that you’re getting involved with families because the real listening the table. We’ll talk about how I’ve set up this table with a sign that says here to listen. No judgment, no advice, no charge and use that sitting there to practice my own listening skills for strangers. It’s not about a service of I’m here to help you.
0:02:47 – (Orly): It’s about I’m here to practice listening. And someone can sit down and it’s kind of like going to the gym. I’m getting the reps in, I’m getting the hundreds of conversations, but all of it is for when I’m in a conversation with a brother of mine or my parents or my grandparents and something happens that I want to be better or change it. So all of the preparation of listening is really for your family and for your close friends who are basically family.
0:03:18 – (Orly): So being on a family related talk show is really exciting.
0:03:24 – (Terry): Yeah, I’m very visual, and you touched on it, but just for our listeners, just so that you could picture what Orly is talking about when he says listening table and all these, you know, you’ll have a know, I’m sure know. Go to his Instagram account and see this, but picture this. A table set up at the beach, some signs on it that basically just are inviting people to sit down and tell their story, what’s going on with them, and Orly is just going to listen to them. In a nutshell, I know you’ve got other things on your signs and things, but just picture that.
0:04:02 – (Terry): I think being in public places, you see a lot of invitations of people that want to hand you things. They want to talk to you, they want to sell you something or they want to convince you of something. But Orly sitting there just with the intention of just listening. So that’s what he’s talking about when he describes this listening table.
0:04:21 – (Wendy): Yeah. And Orly, would you just start us off by just telling us? I mean, I read this intro that is so cool to hear about how you got here, but will you tell us a little bit more in your own words about how the heck did you get this idea and to do this? Where did this come from and why are you so passionate about this?
0:04:41 – (Orly): What a question. This is a question that as I listen to myself and reflect on what I’ve done and what I’m doing, that answer keeps getting deeper and deeper for me, and I keep getting to explain in different ways because it means something different to me every time. So this is a new version of that answer. And buckle up because it is a slight story, but it’ll give a lot of good context. So I grew up in a family of two younger siblings. I’m the oldest of three boys.
0:05:15 – (Orly): We’re each about three or four years apart, which means we’re just far enough to be not friends. We don’t have the same phases in our lives. We’re never in school together. The only time we were in school together was when I was a high school senior and my brother was a high school freshman. And so the gap was just big enough where my friends are my friends and his friends are his friends. And I, as the older person, was like, these are my friends and those are your friends, and let’s keep them separate.
0:05:48 – (Orly): And I could use my hands and the power of being bigger and stronger to get him to stop doing anything I didn’t want him to do and to do things that I did, that’s called violence, and that isn’t good. But what he did in response to that was psychological warfare, which you can’t do anything about with the power of violence. And I quickly learned, well, maybe not that quickly, but eventually I learned that anything that I do to him will come back to me in a worse way.
0:06:27 – (Orly): And nobody was happy about that. He wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy. Sure.
0:06:33 – (Terry): Your parents were thrilled.
0:06:34 – (Orly): They were ecstatic. Yeah, it was highlight of their day, every day.
0:06:41 – (Terry): Let’s have kids.
0:06:44 – (Orly): I’m sure that was chaotic. It really was. And so eventually, my dad is a tv writer, and my mom worked as an art gallery curator for children’s book art. And so basically, this meant I had very creative parents who knew a lot of really creative resources. And so I fell in love with reading. And at a certain point when there was chaos going on in my house, I would just go in my room and I’d close the door and read a book, and that would be my world.
0:07:22 – (Orly): And anyone else fighting outside of it wasn’t part of my world. And so one of the things that I learned from my dad as a writer is that when you’re writing, you choose what your characters say. That’s the fundamental principle of writing, is you create the world. And when you’re doing that, you have to decide what you want everyone to know about your character. Is this a friendly character? Is this a character that seems friendly on the outside, but the audience understands that they’re really trying to get things. And there’s so many levels of depth to character creation, and that comes into how carefully you have to be when you’re choosing the words they use and the actions they take.
0:08:07 – (Orly): And that somehow seeped into me at some point, probably in my teens, that if I want to seem like a friendly person, I should behave like one. And you get to choose oh, hitting my brother isn’t going to get anyone to think that I’m who I think I am, so why don’t I stop doing that? And that was a really great step for me because I thought it made our relationship slightly better. It didn’t mean the psychological warfare was over at all. It just meant the violence wasn’t continuing a big step, but also a very small step.
0:08:47 – (Orly): And so that was a really big change for me. And I really wondered. I was troubled by the thought, like, okay, I’ve realized that saying mean things, I’ve been pretty good at not saying mean things for most of my life because I just don’t get it. Once I realized you could choose what you say, why would you say something that is going to start a fight or saying that’s mean? I really had a hard time just accepting that as something people would do.
0:09:16 – (Orly): And so I never understood why other people in my life, not just my family, but in the whole life, would say things that are incendiary, that would start fights that were. There’s no right answer. No one can say something to what you just said that won’t make it worse. It’s a dead end road. And so even though I wasn’t engaging in physical violence, I was still so confused. Why do people choose to say these things to each other? They know nothing good is going to come out of it anyways.
0:09:49 – (Orly): I didn’t have any answers to that, but I was curious. And eventually I went to college and I studied film because I wanted to follow my father’s footsteps. And I graduated and I got a job in film, and I put this whole kind of concept together that I want to take this challenge. I’ve been dealing with the relationships between people because I have such a great time in relationships. I say fun things and maybe they’re confusing, but I’d rather be confusing and fun than understood and mean like that. I want to turn it into a story that other people who can watch. Like, I watched kids shows, and I was like, try your hardest, and the power of friendship will always win. And that in kids shows kind of inspired me. And so I wanted to do that for, I guess, other people and have fun on the way to make it.
0:10:41 – (Orly): And so I ended up getting a job in kids television and realizing quickly that kids television and any television is an extremely slow process. And if I want to tell a story, it’s going to be, like, decades before it comes out on tv. And that was cool, but not great. And so I ended up volunteering on the side just because I wanted to make a change in the world, even if it’s a small one, while I’m working on something that’s mostly for me and others, but for fun. And so I ended up volunteering at this program in prisons called freedom to choose, which is amazing.
0:11:20 – (Orly): I could say so much about them, but just for the sake of this story, I’ll say it’s basically listening tables. In prison. You take a weekend long workshop on how to deal with their process, which is incredibly simple, and then you go with them to the prisons. And depending on if it’s a whole weekend thing or just a Sunday thing, you have a certain amount of time to do listening activities with people in prison.
0:11:46 – (Orly): And it’s not just listening, it’s also sharing, because if you don’t share vulnerably, if you don’t go to that place yourself first, then you can’t really expect someone else to go there. So they listen to you first, then you listen to them, and then a third person, and you rotate. And a series of happenings in those workshops led me to understand that not everyone has a tv writer for a father that can teach them about choosing what you say.
0:12:20 – (Orly): And, in fact, most people in prison didn’t have any good role models, which is why they ended up in prison. Not because they chose to do the thing that was illegal or wrong or however you want to see it, but because that was the best option that they had in their mind. They had never seen someone forgive somebody else. They’d never seen it modeled. They’d never been told that they were loved. And the people they looked up to use violence or whatever to get what they wanted. And so it was a natural progression.
0:12:55 – (Orly): And that was a really eye opening moment for me when I realized, wow, not everyone’s starting on the same emotional level. And I understood that. Not everyone’s starting financially on the same level, of course. And with systems and oppression, there’s a whole lot of different backgrounds you can come from and circumstances you could be part of. But I never thought that emotional education was like, we’re all humans. We all get the same stuff, right?
0:13:23 – (Orly): Guess not. It really was like, that’s not at all the case. And then the pandemic happened, and I couldn’t go back into the prisons to do these workshops. And I was so like, why are these workshops only in prisons? If people could do these workshops outside of prison, they may not end up in prison in the first place. And also, this shouldn’t just be for people that are. This should be for everybody.
0:13:52 – (Orly): And so I ended up, I had this thought I’d write a book on communication skills when I was in my 60s, because I’d have learned enough by then. And somebody said, why wait till you’re 60? I said, I’d be ready. And he said, if you wait till you’re ready, then you’re never going to do it. And so that was part two. And then the third part was me finally accepting, okay, I’m passionate. I’m never going to be ready. My parents keep saying, take a class. So I take a class in nonviolent communication, which is this incredible thing. And it turned out somebody already became 60 and wrote the book that I wanted to write, which is amazing, really great, terrific book called nonviolent communication.
0:14:37 – (Orly): And the teacher of this course said, the thing about swimming, you can’t learn how to swim without getting in the water. Doesn’t matter how many books on swimming you read. And so that was the third piece that just catalyzed, I want to see this change in the world. I want it to be accessible to people, and I need to learn something by swimming, getting in the water. And I made a list of all the things I could do, and there’s a little extra asterisk of I want it to be accessible to younger people, too.
0:15:06 – (Orly): There’s such a social media trend of giving people thousands of dollars and doing this performative, although life changing for people and sustainable because people keep donating. There is just this element of, you have to do something above and beyond to get celebrated for. And I can’t give someone $1,000.01 time without it doesn’t work out for me. So I thought, wouldn’t it be great to show the world away? Someone could do something that could be really good for free.
0:15:40 – (Orly): Well, time is the most valuable thing you have, so maybe it’s not free, but what a fulfilling. And so that kind of all came together. I made a list of how I could do something that would fit those boxes. And the easiest thing on the list, the cheapest, easiest, most convenient, most let me get out of my comfort zone as fast as possible, was I had the folding tables, I had the folding chairs. I bought $5 worth of art supplies from the local art supply store.
0:16:12 – (Orly): And I put a sign up that said, here to listen to practice swimming. And the first time I did it, I had a life changing conversation with my immediate next door neighbor who did a uturn because I was just in the nearby school, just like on this big lawn, and she did a uturn and pulled her car over and stopped and talked and came to talk, and we talked about all these things about her life and what was going on, the pandemic. And I asked a couple of questions that I was just asking because I was trying to get better understanding and practice my listening skills. But while I was asking, she got better understanding of herself.
0:16:56 – (Orly): And then she goes, oh, I’m sorry. We’ve been sitting for 15 or 20 minutes. She goes, I left my daughter in the car. Her daughter is like a high schooler, so it wasn’t like a baby, but it was just really cool to see how I’d lived next to this woman for a full year at this point, and we’d never had that great of a conversation. And all of a sudden, I feel like I’m really connecting deeply with her. And I was like, this is amazing, that just saying you’re willing to listen to someone can create that. And then I did it again, and I had a similar incredible experience.
0:17:26 – (Orly): I did it again and again and again and again. And after 60 times, I felt like I had learned a little bit and had realized I had a message that whether I was ready or not to share it, it would be worth trying to share.
0:17:42 – (Wendy): Oh, my gosh.
0:17:45 – (Orly): Long story short.
0:17:47 – (Terry): Yeah, no, that’s great.
0:17:48 – (Wendy): That is beautiful.
0:17:50 – (Terry): Well, you probably went into it being like, I don’t know how this is going to go, but when I hear this, I’m like, wow.
0:18:00 – (Orly): Yeah.
0:18:01 – (Terry): All of that formula is set up for such a beautiful experience on both sides. I mean, for you, I’m sure it was very scary, but I can see how it then works because you’re not obligated to fix anything, because I think that’s probably one of the scariest things of people opening themselves up to hearing what’s really going on with other people. You’re like, oh, gosh, I just gained something in addition to my own life that now I’ve got to fix that thing.
0:18:31 – (Terry): I’ve already got enough stuff to fix.
0:18:33 – (Wendy): Or make them feel better or make.
0:18:35 – (Terry): Them feel better, or there’s some sort of expectation outside of, like you said, just listen. And I bet it’s really hard, that restraint, to ask some questions but not go too far to where you do get to that space where you’re like, I’ve got a fix. I’ve got some sort of obligation. Has that been one of the hardest parts from table one to now?
0:19:02 – (Orly): Yeah, you say so. Well, the restraint of trying to fix or make someone feel better is specifically the practice. That is what I’m going out to do is sit there and not try and fix something and not try and make something feel better. And that has showed up in so many different ways. And the good news is, it’s very flexible. There are times where I break my own guidelines. I don’t call them rules because I can break them.
0:19:39 – (Orly): Not a lot of times. But I want to be super clear because this doesn’t come across from the signs. I don’t just sit there silently, as I’m sure you guys are aware. Listening doesn’t just mean sitting there like a brick wall. It means letting someone communicating that you are hearing someone. And that can take place with many different forms. Sometimes it’s paraphrasing what they’ve said so they know you’re listening.
0:20:11 – (Orly): If they’ve told a long story, summarizing and saying, yeah, so I heard you were doing this and then letting them continue. So there’s all these different ways to be part of a conversation without leading the conversation the way you want to go. And also getting to feel like, wow, I would feel really comfortable, or I feel uncomfortable because they’re upset, they’re unhappy, and I would be more comfortable if I could fix their thing.
0:20:38 – (Orly): Letting go of that, it actually was one of the easier things to learn about because once you start practicing it, it becomes really enjoyable. The feeling of being able to be there for someone and not having the responsibility of trying to fix it, all of a sudden it’s like, wow, I’m hearing their thing and that’s their thing, and I’m glad they can talk to me about it. And maybe I can ask a question that you always subtly.
0:21:18 – (Orly): The feeling of wanting to fix things for people hasn’t gone away, but it’s subtle, wanting to try and ask a question or say something that maybe will help them get there. And sometimes just letting them know I hear hurt them and not. And not pushing for it at all. I have had a lot of moments where people have expressed such gratitude for me not trying to fix a problem or just being there patiently that I have filled up my, wow, this is great tank of a kid who says, I don’t have any friends who would listen to me for more than 15 minutes at a time.
0:22:04 – (Orly): And being able to talk to you for an hour has really helped me understand my own personal life, and I’ve never been able to lay all these things out. So that was like, I remember certain moments like that where people have said just how surprising it was for them to be like, wow, just talking to somebody and not having them try and fix anything has really benefited me. So I just carry that with me.
0:22:33 – (Terry): Yeah, I imagine there’s, like, this undercurrent. We’re all as humans, and, I mean, hearing your backstory, your driver and your motivator, you want to walk away from this with something. So, in a sense, it is for your benefit to grow. But the act of doing it has got to just be this mantra in your head of just like, this is not about me. This is not about me. Every time your mind goes to like, oh, I want to tell this thing, I want to take control of this.
0:23:08 – (Terry): It’s like, it’s not about me. I don’t know. That’s where my mind goes. Just observing for the short time that I’m observing.
0:23:15 – (Wendy): I love hearing about all this early because it’s like you’re perfectly describing. Everything you’re putting into action is the art of listening. And everything that you’re moving through all of these uncomfortable things is what creates the power of listening, right? So I’ve seen you share before that a good silent observer has constraint, and they trust the talker, right? And I see that you combine that with the ability to have an embodiment practice of like, oh, wow. Like an observation of what I’m feeling and my temptations.
0:23:49 – (Wendy): And so while you’re listening, you actually are very actively moving and holding space for all of your own emotions and your temptations. And so you are growing as you are listening. And then the cool thing about listening, and this is all day long for parents, and it is a lifelong skill set. That’s why this is so inspiring. It takes a long time to be able to develop this, but when we do it for our children, we actually empower them. And our spouses or our friends or our parents, whoever it is, it is so empowering to not fix or offer suggestions or try to make someone feel better.
0:24:28 – (Wendy): And when you do that, they are able to feel their own power. They come to their own conclusions just by speaking and having someone listen. And it’s so lightning, right? It’s just not on us. It’s not on us. And that’s the trusting the talker part. They actually don’t need any fixing. They don’t need anyone to feel embarrassed. All they need is someone to listen. And if you’ve ever had someone where you’ve vented to or shared a challenge, and then they just say, well, it’s not a big deal, and don’t worry, we’ll just do this, right?
0:25:09 – (Wendy): It almost is like crushing. You’re like, that’s not what I want to do and I don’t want that. And then you feel like even more like I can’t get what I want more in that kind of victim mindset. But when someone just listens, you are like, you know what? I’m going to be okay. This is what I can do. I’m realizing that as I’m talking. So that good silent observer kind of recipe for success that you outline and model through your tables of constraint and talk and trusting the talker.
0:25:42 – (Wendy): And then also I hear you saying that you are listening to understand, not to respond and how much practice it takes and your ability. Orly, and you say this a lot, but you are so open to learning. So maybe it’s just baked into your personality, maybe it’s how your parents raised you. But it is beautiful to watch your courage to try new things and fail or try new things and have them not go perfectly, perfectly, but reflect on what you learned is very inspiring.
0:26:19 – (Wendy): And that is such another element of this because just culturally, we have not been well trained on listening. And so for people who are trying to do more of this, whether it’s in their parenting or their marriage, whatever it may be, it’s going to take probably a lot of failure where you are going to interrupt, you are going to try to fix, you are going to feel very uncomfortable in your body when someone sits down. And the one video you posted about the guy on the beach who came up and he was eating the mango and the cops were like following him. The way you describe the uncomfortable feelings in your body and your mind is so beautiful to witness because you’re just moving through it. You’re modeling that for the world and you’re okay, but this is uncomfortable.
0:27:09 – (Wendy): And here’s what I learned as I got through that. Here’s what I observed. The empathy you say was easier to find for this party versus this party. So you’re just describing what active listening is and it’s just absolutely beautiful and powerful and life changing.
0:27:29 – (Orly): Yeah. And how you said it, there’s so much that you said that is in there. And I can respond to a couple of those things with some more. I know that there are tools that people probably come to you for. What are some specific tools that I can use? How can I do this? One of the things that you talked about was the science observer and the talker and trust. And I think this generally is between two parents because at the table, when I talk about the silence observer, that’s when there’s three people. So there’s me as the facilitator, the listener, right. The person who says, this is what I’m doing and also who responds. And I bring people to be silent observers, to just practice sitting in silence with me being a third party. They’re not the sharer and they’re not the key listener, but they’re there to practice silence. And that means they might not say anything for an hour.
0:28:31 – (Orly): And you think it’s easy, but it turns out to be incredibly challenging. And I can imagine that that translates really well into parenting because especially in the challenging conversations and the easy conversations are less necessary to kind of workshop, but we want more conversations to be easier. That’s why I’m practicing listening and probably why you’re doing what you’re doing, which is sometimes one of the parents in a disciplinary or kind of heated conversation, one of the parents is not talking.
0:29:09 – (Orly): They’re there being supportive and the practice of being able to say nothing and just trust that the spouse is going to handle it, and maybe they’re not going to handle it the way that you would want them to do it. But having the global perspective of maybe this situation didn’t go perfectly as much as I wanted to, but the stakes were low enough that it’s okay and I would rather trust that outcome and let it go. Like let it go all the way through than to interrupt my partner and try and derail the conversation, say, this is actually how I want to parent, how I want to discipline the child. And then you want to say, like, we’re united here, and maybe afterwards, hey, next time when we’re talking to somebody about what they’ve done and punishing them or whatever, I would prefer if we did it differently, but not in that moment.
0:30:12 – (Orly): Do we want to have that kind of parenting conflict. Saving that for later, I think, requires a lot of restraint and practice.
0:30:22 – (Wendy): Yes. And that applies always. Like I always tell parents, until there’s the physicalness, right. That is like, hey, step in, offer them, go take a walk, whatever it may be, but all the other stuff that makes total sense, right? And it’s so true because parents get so rift when they get interrupted, or it’s like you’re doing it wrong. I know how to do it better. And you can have those conversations later. But that is beautiful to look at how you can just trust, let it through and then work later to actually creatively problem solve, how you can do it differently tomorrow as a team. I love that.
0:31:02 – (Orly): Yeah, me too. I like when you’re the team first and then when it comes to being there for kids and kids. I’ve worked with kids as a counselor, a camp counselor for many years, and just working with kids all the time. So I worked in the school also. They’re a lot smarter than people give them credit for, fundamentally, I think. And they have emotional intelligence. And like you said, they get to feel their own power if you’re there to listen to them. And some useful ways to practice that and to let that happen is sometimes just asking them, well, if they want your suggestions, right. That’s always a key one if you have a solution, because often parents do have great solutions to child’s problems.
0:31:49 – (Orly): Hey, I hear you’re talking about wanting to whatever you have to do. I have an idea. Can I share that with you? And all of a sudden, you’re not telling them what to do. You’re letting them feel in control by giving them the space to accept your offer or not. And that gives them power. And also, if you’re able to ask them how they want to be listened to at the time, in very simple ways, even something that could be as direct as, like, what do you want from me?
0:32:22 – (Orly): Friendly like, or, hey, are you telling me this because you want me to help you, or you just want to let me know about how your day is going? Are questions that are totally innocuous, normal questions that just give you such a deep sense of, oh, they actually don’t want me to do anything. They just want to connect. They just want to share how their day is going with me. And yeah, maybe they had a bad time at school, but they’re not asking me to fix it. They just let me know so I can see them. And they probably can’t verbalize that. They just want to be seen and understood, appreciated.
0:32:56 – (Orly): But the question really is, like, how do you want me to listen to that? That’s what you ask internally. That’s a hard question to ask for people that don’t have that vocabulary around listening skills, but it really is a terrific way to orient yourself because someone who’s good at communication skills can also come in and say, and if you can develop this as a practice within a family, it’d be really cool.
0:33:23 – (Orly): I preface things like, hey, I want to tell you about my day, and I don’t want you to tell me what to do about anything. I just want to tell you about.
0:33:30 – (Wendy): That because you can come in or my challenge.
0:33:33 – (Orly): Yeah, you could come in on offense and say, hey, I’m telling you this and I want you to tell me what I should do in this situation. And so you’re empowering the person to know how you want them to be there for you, which is always really fun because they feel like, oh, I know why I’m here. I don’t have to guess while I’m listening.
0:33:55 – (Wendy): Yeah, I love that. And you’re asking for what you want, right? Instead of just secretly thinking that your spouse or your child or whatever it may be, should know what you want, just ask for what you want. And if you just need someone to hold space for you, then ask for that. That is such a beautiful tip that really, I can see being very effective and one that I could definitely use more. I know, in our relationship, Terry, and that’s awesome.
0:34:23 – (Terry): Yeah, my mind goes to a bunch of different places. I mean, I know earlier your example of the silent observer with the parents is like, when one parent is kind of driving a conversation. But then I also think about where you left off at the end of this was, we’ve seen this play out more so with our daughter than our son so far. But she’s the older one, so it makes sense.
0:34:50 – (Wendy): She’s almost 16.
0:34:51 – (Terry): Yeah, she’s almost 16. So when this goes really well and you are able to either discern ahead of time that you are just in the listening role, you’re not there to fix, or there is a level of like, okay, I’m in listening mode. That’s what she wants. And whether you hear that explicitly, like, she prefaces it or you ask it or whatever, but when you actually do the listening, they’re more likely to come back again and again and again.
0:35:28 – (Terry): Because I just had this picture of your table. I think everybody in their home has this table. It’s just an imaginary table.
0:35:37 – (Orly): No, it’s a real table. You have the table. I’m sure you eat dinner at it every day.
0:35:43 – (Terry): Okay, maybe it’s the signs that are imaginary. The signs are written, but to your kids, they might look at you as like, oh, that’s the advice table or that’s the lecture table. That’s the discipline table. That’s not the listening table. So it’s like, if you’re carrying this imaginary sign, this real sign, maybe parents, hey, that’s a tool for some parents, some real signs to wear around their neck, that this is just listening. Like listening first, they’d be more likely to come back, or they might be more likely to do it in the first place and then come back and return. And return. Because I think most parents have a different sign on their table.
0:36:29 – (Wendy): Well, Anne, you can feel it immediately, especially with Stella, she will shut down so fast, and she just goes, yeah, never mind, mom. You know what? I’m just going to go take a shower or something. And you’re like, crap, I just did it. Basically, you start teaching, right? So, as the mom who’s the parenting educator and the family life coach, I am constantly practicing constraint, right. And not just with my parenthood, but in all of my life, this is not my strongest suit, even though I teach families how to be like. Or parents how to be like, listen intently, and what a powerful tool for me.
0:37:07 – (Wendy): It is one that I really have to build. But you can feel Stella shut down immediately. And it is so fun to be on the other end of it when she opens up. And she is our. She. She does open up, and it is so beautiful that if you can hold that space, then I keep saying constraint instead of restraint. Is that what I’m saying, Terry? Oh, restraint. Not constraint. Restraint. Okay, Terry, what would I do without you correcting me?
0:37:43 – (Terry): I’m here for the trivia contest.
0:37:45 – (Wendy): That’s my listeners. Forgive me. I keep saying constraint, but what I mean is restraint. I struggle with restraint. And you can clearly see it in the children. They will shut down very fast. And this also happens when all day long with parents who are like, why did you do that? Right? A kid smacks another kid. Yeah. And this is the most triggering time to practice. But when you practice more in the calm times, how was your day? And they start going off like, our kids are in middle school and high school now, and the stuff we hear is wild. Like, you just want to be like, what did they do?
0:38:26 – (Wendy): But the practicing in those times when it’s not, like, high stakes, you’re just listening to them observe what’s going on in middle school and high school, that will give you the practice for them. When you’re in the triggering moments and someone’s just smacked another kid, or you get a phone call from the school that your child’s stolen from the giving box, or who knows? Right? Like, when. In those moments, when you say, what were you thinking? Or, what did you do? And I teach parents to say it differently, but what happened and to be able to listen intently in that moment is such a skill set that a gives you all the information you need to creatively problem solve. When you interrupt and when you belittle or when you dismiss all those things, it just makes you a less effective leader and a teacher. But when you get all of the information, when you let them speak and really hear their side of things, then you are able to lead with that firm kindness and effectiveness that you want to.
0:39:26 – (Wendy): So there’s just so many benefits to it. And you can feel it real quickly when you’re not doing it because they will shut down. And then you can see the power of it when you are able to follow through with it, because it works. And the goal is not to have it work because, as we talked about, you benefit when you become better at listening, they benefit. So the goal is, like, it’s raising up humans, right? And at the same time, everybody benefits.
0:39:59 – (Orly): Yeah. The power word is empathy, which is a big power word because it means so many things. And it’s also one of those things where when you’re trying to do it, you’re not really sure. And when you’re doing it, it’s one of the things, am I doing it? Am I doing the empathy? I don’t know. Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? So being able to have a practice of trying to get into that empathetic space, and one of the questions that I have learned recently to ask is, do I need to know this to be empathetic?
0:40:34 – (Orly): Right. And that comes down to, like, what happened? Why did you do this? Blah, blah, blah. It’s like, can you find a place of empathy without how little do you need to find a place of empathy? Because there’s a lot of curiosity that comes up, I’m sure, as a parent and as a listener, because you want to know more, what happened to cause this. But eventually that information may come out, maybe not. Depending on the situation, you may need it, maybe not.
0:41:05 – (Wendy): Yeah.
0:41:05 – (Orly): And so being able to start in a place of trying to see, trying to get into a place of feeling where your child or person you’re communicating with is feeling, and being able to identify that by maybe asking, oh, it sounds like you’re feeling. Do you feel embarrassed about that? Is that what you’re explaining? Or it sounds like you’re really excited. And if you could just connect with that very base feeling.
0:41:32 – (Orly): And one of the questions I ask with kids a lot that has incredible results is, are you mad? That’s it. I say, what’s sometimes a funny voice, but just, you don’t have to get into this whole language. You can just say, like, oh, are you sad about it? Even if you’re wrong or right if you’re wrong, they’ll say, no, I’m mad about it. And then they’ll think, and then they’ll say what you’re feeling. And so even just guessing what their feelings are out loud.
0:42:05 – (Orly): If you’re right, great. Then they’ll keep going. And if you’re wrong, then they’ll tell you they will. So you really can’t lose. If you’re starting with curiosity, not about the situation they’re talking about, but about how they’re feeling, it’s a really big key. And then another question I absolutely love asking is, what are you talking about? Love asking that to kids. I say in funny ways, what are you talking about?
0:42:36 – (Orly): And sometimes.
0:42:39 – (Wendy): That’S good.
0:42:40 – (Orly): It just takes down a barrier of some kind of, oh, they are like, I understand. This person wants to understand what I’m saying, but doesn’t. And so I could even say it multiple times. It’s just one of those things that’ll let the person keep talking and let them know that I am interested and that eventually I’ll get to a place where I’m on the same page.
0:43:16 – (Wendy): That is so cool.
0:43:17 – (Orly): So those are good things. I love to say. I love to go.
0:43:20 – (Wendy): I love it.
0:43:21 – (Orly): What are you talking about?
0:43:22 – (Wendy): What are you talking about? Okay, so I have a question for you. So you’ve had a few of these incredible posts go viral, and it’s so cool now hearing your story orally and seeing that. So Terry is an artist. He’s a creative. Does like, advertising campaigns and big marketing things. He works for a sunglass brand now, but he does like these amazing. He’s a creative, he’s an artist. And hearing that you have this dad in the film industry and that you said you went to school for film, right?
0:43:56 – (Orly): Yeah.
0:43:57 – (Wendy): Right. And that this all is like this beautiful combination between this heartfelt movement and mission that you have to help the world be better and learn and grow and all these things. But it’s also combined with this is the most beautiful artistic creation of, I don’t know what you would call it, documentary film, human experiment. And just the way you do it with the signs that are so not.
0:44:26 – (Orly): Corporate.
0:44:26 – (Wendy): I don’t know what the word is. Corporate. They’re just so welcoming. It is just the coolest creation artistically, combined with the human movement part. But you’ve had a few of these posts with your tables go viral. And one of them, which is how I found you, was when you sat down and you had a little boy, who I think he was eleven, came up to you, and it’s now been viewed over 3 million times. But he came up and you shared how you were actually talking for a minute, and he interrupted you, and he then went to talk about how his mom had died in a previous year and the emotions that he was moving through.
0:45:07 – (Wendy): But I want to hear you speak just for a minute, about that day, that experience about interrupting and going with it. Like someone interrupting you and going with it. But you say, what I want you to pay attention to is not only his story, but also how I paused when he interrupted me and I let him go out and speak about what he wanted to. I was in the middle of a story about someone else who came to my table, and then he interjected, instead of finishing my story, I let him go.
0:45:36 – (Wendy): This is what I think it means to be listening well and communicating nimbly. You don’t have to finish the story if you’re about to hear one. That’s more important. When you listen to this or if you read this, I think about how attached you are, the things you’re saying. Think about how sometimes you want to say something and you get cut off. It can be frustrating, but sometimes it can also be empowering to know that you are able to shift immediately into listening when the time is right.
0:46:04 – (Wendy): When you aren’t so concerned about getting your own thoughts out, you may be able to hear something incredible and learn a valuable life lesson. In this case, we hear the age old and beautiful reminder that you should be grateful for the beautiful people in your life. Why they are thank you. Why they thank you for your listening. So tell us about that experience that day that was so moving. Still, when I watch that, tears come to my eyes because it is such a beautiful human moment of connection.
0:46:40 – (Wendy): And then what you’re adding about the process of listening and going with the interrupting, was that a special day for you orally?
0:46:48 – (Orly): It really was, for so many reasons. And the meta reason that it was a special day for me is because I was really resisting bringing recording equipment to the table. I mean, I did it over 60 times without bringing equipment because there’s such a social media element of let me go and get people to say crazy things and share them and go viral for reasons. And I very much didn’t want to do that. I wanted to do something that says, look, you don’t have to bring a video camera and do this performative thing to get recognition. And so that was like, maybe the first or second day I’d brought a camera, the first time I brought a microphone. And so I was really grateful that that ended up happening. And it made me go, oh, maybe I should do this more often. But I still really very rarely bring a microphone because I think that what I mean, there’s so many layers to this, right, the first is going back to what you said about your daughter when she gets upset about being interrupted.
0:47:54 – (Orly): And this is something that I also find infuriating and deal with trying to be nimble. When I’m telling one of my parents about something that I’m excited about, and they start interrupting and talking about something else or blah, blah, blah, and I’m like, I’m telling you something that I don’t need to tell you. I know what happened in my day. I’m giving you the gift of sharing something about me. If you don’t want it, I’m not going to give it to you. I already have it. This is like, I’m taking time out of my day to tell you what happened in my day.
0:48:32 – (Orly): I’m already aware of it. And so having that, and it’s infuriating by the time I say, look, if you just didn’t say this, I would have been done with the story. If you waited 10 seconds, I would have finished the story. But now I’m mad, and I don’t want to tell the rest of the story. Right. I always think about that when I think about interrupting. But I also, at the same time, through practice, have gotten to realize I already know the story, so I don’t need to tell it to someone else because I already know it. And if someone else doesn’t value it the same, who cares? I value it. I have it. It’s not theirs to worry about.
0:49:17 – (Orly): So I can be okay being interrupted. And the story I was telling this kid, I already knew it. I’d lived it. I already had gotten everything I needed from that story.
0:49:31 – (Wendy): Yeah.
0:49:33 – (Orly): And the term, like more important comes into because people could say, well, how do you define more important? And I think that the way I frame it is everything this kid says I have never heard. Everything I’m about to say, I already know. So being able to recognize that he is sharing something that is deep and, I mean, he shared a story about losing his mom. It was a very emotional story. And me being able to say, look, I already know my story.
0:50:03 – (Orly): And it doesn’t seem like jockeying for position of who’s speaking is relevant at all at this point. If I’m feeling a good listener, then I’m interested in what he’s saying. And if what I’m saying gave him permission and comfort to feel like he could jump in and say something that came up to him and feel safe to say it, then I felt like it really was a beautiful experience in creating a space for someone to feel comfortable enough to speak and then having the restraint to not constraint, the restraint to enforce what you’ve just created and say, I’ve created space, and now I am living it.
0:50:55 – (Orly): And that story of just being a story of appreciating the people you have was a beautiful thing, and it resonated with a lot of people. And it was very surprising that it got so many views. And I’m grateful that it made it so other people. I realize I have a message of the power of listening and that I should try and spread it. I’m grateful to it. I still struggle to bring microphones. I brought one yesterday to the table that I did. And it’s hard to think, like, oh, this one didn’t get as many views, so it must not be as valuable, but through that, and there’s other ways that I think are effective. And I’d rather.
0:51:43 – (Orly): I have a lot of thoughts on making videos because I love making films, so that’s something that I’ll work through separately. But it was just a really cool moment to be part of, and it made me very grateful to be there. And I’ve done a listening table so many times. I’ve done it like at least 150 times now. I probably. And listening to people going through sad stuff is tough. I was in a homeless shelter yesterday doing my listening table, and there’s an 84 year old man with his 67 year old daughter who were in the homeless shelter. And I could talk about that for an hour because he spoke to me for an hour. And just, I think that the feeling of loneliness really comes down to, I’ll keep this pretty short.
0:52:39 – (Orly): I volunteered for the suicide hotline for a year because I wanted to learn about listening and hard listening and how they teach listening. This Us surgeon general just put out this thing about loneliness, as loneliness is as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and has terrible health effects. And yeah, if he’s going to say that, fine. But the effects that loneliness can have on somebody in their mental health is just huge.
0:53:11 – (Orly): And I grew up as a person who, when I was in a kid, when I was in school, I never had like a lunch table group. Middle school, elementary school, high school. It was like, who am I going to sit with? I have a friend over in this group, but I’m not part of that group. And I have a friend in this group. I’m not one of the musicians, I’m not one of the athletes, I’m not one of the band people or the science people. So I felt a lot of loneliness in my own life, even though I had some really close friends that I’m still friends with.
0:53:40 – (Orly): But one of the things that I do that I think I’m trying to get other people to do is keep your friends and make sure you reach out to people, even if it’s calling someone once a month or letting them know that you’re there for them or just sending them a picture or something. Maybe more than just a picture, if that’s the only thing you do. Because so many people who are in their elderly years, especially who’ve called the suicide hotline, the story is basically this.
0:54:15 – (Orly): I got married and I decided that my spouse was the only person in my life that I needed. And I gave them all my attention. And suddenly, for some reason, we got divorced or they died. And now I am completely alone and I don’t see the point of living anymore. And these are people who have had siblings, who have had friendships. And I see it like a garden. You don’t need a ton of friends, but you absolutely need a handful.
0:54:52 – (Orly): And so it’s just feeling that place within your family of feeling like, oh, I can always call my mom or my dad or my grandfather, and building that up is just like, it could not be a more important investment in your future, but even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.
0:55:17 – (Wendy): Yeah, so true. And that is exactly, in a way, what parents are doing with their own children as they’re learning to do this and have great relationships with which we teach here is like, all of our work is based on, if you have great relationships with your children, then comes great behavior, then comes trust and respect, then comes the years and the teenage years where they don’t rebel, but it’s all based on great relationships and listening. Like, really strengthening your listening skills is one way to do that. And that creates lifelong friendships, right? Whether you have one kid, two kids, five, those set you up for such success. And then, of course, friends and spouses and extended family are so important too.
0:56:00 – (Wendy): But what a beautiful point, Orly and Terry and I both know from a creative standpoint, two people who pour our hearts into our work. And I just came off of teaching a compassionate discipline webinar to 1500 people. And holy cow, it’s amazing how you can pour your heart into creation. And it’s such a journey to really just stand in confidence and just enjoyment of what you’ve created, right? And not look to any external factors. And especially now that we put our world out in the world and there’s such these big numbers, right? And it can be so like, it’s just a journey. It’s such a journey. When you’re a creative or a helper or a teacher of any format, it’s just different these days. But I just want to encourage you, please keep creating and keep recording and keep putting this stuff in the world because what you’re doing is so powerful and I trust that you will listen. Right. We didn’t get a chance to the listening to ourselves conversation. We could riff for a whole nother hour on that. But I trust that you will listen to yourself as you are guided to morph this wherever direction it goes. But please, just whatever you do, keep creating and keep putting this into the world because it is very powerful what you are doing and it is changing the world.
0:57:24 – (Wendy): So thank you so much for spending time with us, for being interviewing someone who is doing so much to listen to others. It has been an honor to spend this last hour trying with. I know I’ve had restraint to mostly just listen to you. So I hope that has felt good to listen to your story and listen to who you are and what you believe in. And it’s just been an honor to get to know you and learn all that. So can you leave listeners with where they can come find you and how to get to know more of what you do in the world?
0:58:05 – (Orly): Absolutely. First of all, thank you so much for listening to me. It makes me feel heard. And when people like you and Terry, who’s doing an incredible job being the science observer for this portion. So shout out to you, Terry. Way to have that restraint. It is validating for me to be able to receive this attention from you guys. It gives me so much of a feeling of some days are challenging and having you guys have such a vulnerability and a kind of reciprocation of that really gives me a lot and it fills up my tank. So thank you.
0:58:51 – (Orly): Where can you find me? If you’re looking, you can go to the listeningtable.com, a website that Terry will as a creative director tell me is not great. I’m working on it. I’m working on it. It’s not my skill set, but the listeningtable.com has basically a little bit of stuff. If you want to support me, there’s a little thing you could buy a bracelet on that says here to listen on it that you can remember that listening is a personal thing.
0:59:18 – (Orly): And then if you are on social media, Orly’s listening table is mine or l y is how you spell my name. Orly’s listening table and some people start their own listening table channels. I encourage people. I teach mostly every other Sunday, except when circumstances get in the way. How to do your own listening table free online, just about an hour long live class. They’re usually small classes because I like to keep them intimate and you can always find the times on my website that says you just click on your own table and it doesn’t mean you have to step in public. It usually means the table that everyone has is the one that really counts. The dining table or the family room table or whatever.
1:00:03 – (Orly): You don’t even need the table. That’s probably the best places to find me and YouTube. I’m starting to make some longer videos that have tools in them and certain phrases. I’m trying to make them in a way that a younger person could watch them because these are skills that while it’s incredible that parents are developing these by listening to this podcast, I think wouldn’t it be amazing if you could get this skill to be something that a kid would be willing to participate in?
1:00:34 – (Orly): Oh my gosh. How can an eleven year old feel empowered to not talk crazy? So I’m making some summer short animated videos. Some are trying to be fun. Still a work in progress, but stay tuned. Subscribe if you are willing to follow me on the journey and you could always write me anytime. I love hearing from people. It gives me a feeling of part of me saying a message is. It really is lovely when I get feedback because it makes me feel like the message is being heard and that always means a lot. So thank you.
1:01:15 – (Wendy): Love it. Well, thank you again, Orly. This has been so much fun. Listeners, go find Orly on all the channels, support him, get a bracelet, attend one of his classes on Sunday. What a blessing that you do that for the world, Orly. So thank you for that and it’s been awesome. So thanks for listening community and we’ll see you in the next episode. Bye.
