Want to Heal the World? Be a Better Listener – QVC’s Shawn Killinger
You know what’s harder than it looks? Listening. Being present and tuning into someone while they share their heart is a privilege, but let’s be honest: sometimes it feels like a chore (moms of small kids can relate!). Other times, listening can pump us full of fear or make us freeze, because we’re not quite sure how to handle the information that’s been handed to us. But one thing’s for sure: listening matters, because listening is how we learn how to meet the needs of the people around us. Nancy’s good friend, QVC host Shawn Killinger is here today to tackle all things listening. As a former news anchor and current on-air talent at QVC, not to mention a wife and mom, Shawn’s a master at opening her heart and receiving what others have to say, because at work and at home, she’s had to practice how to hand the spotlight over to someone else. Shawn shares practical tips you can put in your toolkit today to be a better listener (tip: always stay curious!) and above all, why doing the work to listen more is 100% worth it.
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Show Summary
Hi there, Nancy Hicks here. Welcome back to So What? Why It Matters. Today we're continuing on in our Better Communication series, a topic near and dear to my heart.
Communication has always been my professional work. I see the value, and I see the pitfalls. And we've all been a part of crummy and effective communication. We can tell the difference. If you think about it, communication is it's kind of like the technology at a live event: it affects everything. When it's done well, there's this beautiful flow, and you take in the sights and the sounds of the events with glee. But if the technology is off in some way, it ruins the whole thing.
On the other hand, here's where communication is not like the tech at an event: communication often gets blamed for when things aren't working in relationships. But the truth is, it's often not communication that's the problem. It's the relational issues, often beneath our various forms of communication.
Listening to more than words—to head, to heart, to soul, to God—takes communication. and gives it the So What? Listening is the first step toward moving our communication into action.
So let's get into it.
This past year has been a lot. Most of our lives were flipped upside down as we moved to our living rooms and into Zoom meetings galore. We're increasing in speed of information, taking it in and putting it out on a regular basis. But this past year, we’ve been bombarded with even more from an election and a pandemic, and the resulting stress and fear from both of these issues.
So it would make sense that our sources and methods of communication have had to change. Has that been a good thing, or detrimental?
Communication is a layer of foundation to our everyday lives. We can't do anything without it. Each of us is connected to our phone. Why? Because it connects us to people, the ones we can't be with right at that very moment. We're drawn to social media, because it allows us to communicate, to enter into and experience the world around us.
But with all the extra chatter, are we actually listening? If not, how can we communicate more clearly with those in our lives, the ones we say we love (and even the ones we don't)?
For this episode, I had the privilege of speaking with Shawn Killinger, who is a QVC host, fired NBC Apprentice (the Martha version!), verbal acrobat, travel savant, gifted over-analyzer, spiritual gangster, and cool adoptive mommy. She's active in sharing her life through yes, of course, TV, but also in her Instagram and Facebook. She shares her story with grace and light, and her bright and bubbly personality is infectious. I can attest to this, you guys. She's a dear friend of mine and who doesn't want some of that bubbly personality and light? We're all after that, especially after the year we've had.
I hope you enjoy my conversation with Shawn!
So What? Moments
Shawn
God created me to be in community with my fellow brothers and sisters. And you can't be in community if you're not listening. Being in community means being with the other people around you. It means learning to compromise, partner, and provide for their needs as yours are provided for.
Nancy
Don’t allow fear to block or interrupt you from listening to someone. Pay attention, stay curious, and take the limelight off yourself.
Thought-Provoking Quotes
“Listening to others—really listening and digesting—requires us to lay down the agenda. It requires us to show up with vulnerability. It requires us to not be certain where things will go after we hear what we hear. And that is hard.” – Shawn Killinger
“My struggle is learning to listen more in my personal life and learning to defer more to others—AKA, say, my husband—because I am so equipped to be and used to being in the driver's seat that it is so weird to be in the passenger seat and I really don't always do it so well.” – Shawn Killinger
“I think about where we are socially, politically, the interconnectedness in humanity—gosh, it would be so different if we all were able to listen better and with a heart of understanding for what the other person was feeling or needed to hear.” – Shawn Killinger
“For me, in order to communicate in a way that is authentic and relatable, I just have to keep it real. But I never want to do that in a way that makes the other person uncomfortable or feel like I'm shooting them down.” – Shawn Killinger
“Most often, the reason why people aren’t listening is because they're afraid of what they’ll hear if they really listen. They're afraid to internalize what true and what deep listening will say about them, whether it means that they've failed at something, or they need to do something better, or they've hurt someone.” – Shawn Killinger
“In order to practice great listening, [you need to be] genuinely curious about what you are going to hear or learn, and curious [about] what the other person is saying.” – Shawn Killinger
“If I'm in a personal relationship with a friend or a loved one, the way I try to practice good listening is while they're speaking, I will say to myself quietly inside, ‘Shawn, come on, whose spotlight is it? Who's standing under the bright light right now?’” – Shawn Killinger