When you listen from a sense of already knowing — “I know what we’re talking about,” “I know where this is going” — everything you hear gets filtered through your preconceptions. Joe calls this “a pretty harsh filter.” The same thing happens when you listen from “I have to get this” — the anxiety of needing to understand creates its own filter that blocks understanding.
The deeper forms of listening have fewer filters, or what Joe calls “more natural” filters. From this place, the important information surfaces on its own. But accessing this requires sitting in the unknown — being willing to not know what’s coming, not know where the conversation is heading, not even know if you’re following correctly.
“Listening through the filter of knowing, which is kind of living in the past — I know this thing — it will filter out what you hear. Living in the idea ‘oh I have to get this’ will also filter out what you hear.”
Joe shares a live example: when Brett’s internet cut out for 15 seconds, instead of panicking about lost content, Joe stayed in the listening. When Brett returned, Joe just felt the energy in his voice and knew where they were — far more effectively than if he’d been tracking every word. The trust in the process is the process.
This connects to why companies lose creativity. Once a team has a fixed identity — “this is who we are, this is how we do it” — that identity becomes a filter on the listening, preventing genuinely new ideas from being heard.
Related Concepts
- How we listen shapes what we hear
- Wonder is curiosity without needing an answer
- Knowing is the opposite of wonder
- Being in the question beats finding the answer
- Embodied listening improves signal to noise
- Deep listening requires listening to yourself simultaneously
- Listening with unconditional acceptance transforms relationships
- Attunement reduces mental chatter and reveals quiet wants
- Listening is receiving, not doing