What To Do When People Won't Freaking Listen

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You've said it once.
You've said it twice.
You've said it fifteen times over four months.

And somehow, nothing changes.

You're not crazy.
You're just not being heard.

I lived this recently. I told a coworker in January that we needed to cut a software that wasn't working. He agreed. Or so I thought. Fast forward to April and we're still having the same conversation.

January. That's when we decided. January.

In this video, I'm breaking down the three reasons people don't listen when you speak and three things you can actually do about it.

Distraction.
Different wiring.
Lack of clarity.

These three things are behind almost every "why won't they just listen to me" moment you've ever had.

I'm also walking you through the DISC personality framework (my favorite tool for understanding how people process information differently) and why speaking louder has never once helped someone understand you better.

The hard question isn't "why won't they listen?"

The hard question is "am I being a person worth listening to?"

That's the one that changes everything.

I'm Dr. Kimberly Beam Holmes. After a decade transforming marriages at Marriage Helper, I've realized that the greatest tragedy isn't a failed relationship; it's the person who stays stuck and never experiences the fullness of all God intended.

The Way You Show Up is for the high-achiever who is tired of "fine."

We're dismantling the average life to build an exceptional one—using the science of the PIES: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual health.

If you want to save your marriage, go to Marriage Helper. If you want to master yourself and lead your legacy, stay here.

New episodes every Tuesday.

Don't just exist. Show up.

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Transcript

When No One Listens

SPEAKER_00 1:28

What do you do when no one is freaking listening to you?

SPEAKER_01 1:33

This is one of the most frustrating things that I feel in my life. In fact, I'm going to tell you a story that just recently happened. We, as a company, back in November, we got this software. We hoped that it was going to do XYZ and have all these great things and be able to serve clients in a really amazing way. But actually, what ended up happening was it didn't really work well much at all. But the data was kind of messy, and but I just had a gut feel like this isn't worth it. We need to just cancel this software. So I met with one of my coworkers back in January. We were talking about it. And I said, we just need to cut it. We just need to cancel it. We just need to honestly get rid of it. To which my coworker was like, well, let's just give it X amount of more time and look at the data. And I said, we could do that. But on this day, January 21st, if it hasn't done what we want it to do, it needs to go. We agreed. Or so I thought. But here we were yesterday, April 30th, and we're still talking about this software, about how it's not doing what we want it to do. It's not giving us the results that we were hoping it would. And he said, Well, at what point do you think we should decide to cut the software? And I looked at him and I said, January. January is when we decided to cut the software. January. Why did it not happen? Why did you not listen? Have you ever felt this way? Have you ever felt this way in talking with your kids, with your mom, with your dad, with your husband, with your wife? You feel like you are going around in circles trying to tell them something about how you feel, about a desire that you have, about a concern that you have, about a boundary, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

And you just feel like no one is listening to you.

Three Reasons People Tune Out

Reason One Distraction

Reason Two Personality Language

Reason Three Lack Of Clarity

You Cannot Force Listening

Get Full Attention First

Boundaries With Family Without Blame

Clear Is Kind In Real Life

Learning To Communicate Without Words

Comments And Free Assessment

SPEAKER_01 3:20

And you feel like you're going crazy. Here's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about the three reasons. The three reasons, they're not all encompassing, but I think they are the three main reasons that people don't listen when you speak. And then three things that you can do so that the other person will actually listen. Okay, so here's reason number one. People don't listen because they are distracted. I am for sure guilty of this myself. I can easily be checking emails, Slack, Instagram, on my phone, and become really distracted when important people in my life are talking to me, when my husband's talking to me, when coworkers are talking to me, when my mom or dad are talking to me. And it's not great. I shouldn't defend that in myself because there's not really any reason to do it. There's nothing to defend. But a lot of the times when you are trying to talk to someone, maybe it's not that they don't want to hear you. It's just that they are distracted and their brain and their eyes and their ears aren't fully attuned to what you are saying in the moment. It's not necessarily nefarious on their part. They're not trying to disrespect you. They're not trying to act like you don't matter or the words that you say aren't important to them. They're just distracted. The second reason that people don't hear you is because you process things differently from each other. Now here's the thing. I think this is actually a pretty common reason that we don't give enough attention to. There's a bunch of different personality assessments out there. There's Myers Briggs, there's Enneagram. My favorite one is called the Disc. And on a very high level, here's what the disc tells us about other people's behavioral styles or the temperaments that they have in the way that they act in given situations. There are these people that I like to call the commanders. They are the people who are very driven. They want just give me the high-level idea, give me the overall concept, move quick because I move quick. That's a commander. They like to take, take charge, they like to get things done. And when they're listening to information, the more details you give them, the more they want to crawl under their desk and die. Then you have the communicators. These are the people who are super fun, outspoken. They just love doing fun and exciting things. They're spontaneous. They're great communicators. That's why they're called communicators in the way that we talk about them. And these people, again, with the details or with anything that's super analytical, where they feel like there's too many rules, they just start to tune out because you're kind of raining on their parade and cramping their style. Then you have these people that we call completers. They're very peaceful, loyal, they hate taking big risks. And so whenever they feel like that you are overbearing, they can start to kind of close into themselves. They they like safety and they like peace. They also really like psychological safety. So they can kind of start going into themselves. Or if you start talking to them about an issue, if you're trying to address conflict with someone who's a completer, they kind of try and run away from it. They don't like that. And then we have the calculators. These are the people who are incredibly analytical. They love details, they love facts, and they hate being wrong. They calculate every single decision. Now you can kind of begin to see how if you have a communicator who's super fun, loves spontaneity, doesn't really care about the details, definitely doesn't care about always getting everything exactly right. I mean, get it 10 to 20% in the margin of error. That's good enough. That's what a communicator thinks. And when they're talking to a calculator who has to have every single detail, they have a spreadsheet for every single thing. The communicator doesn't know where the spreadsheets are. They keep losing them. And then you have the calculator who lives and breathes by the spreadsheets. You can begin to see how they don't listen to each other. Not because necessarily they're not hearing each other, but because they don't know how to speak each other's language. Then you can begin to see how the completely who loves peace, calm, things to stay just even keel, everyone to just get along. And then you have a commander who doesn't mind conflict one bit, will charge into the eye of the storm, isn't afraid of really hurting people's feelings because they just want to get stuff done. You can begin to see how those people can begin to not hear each other. When the commander says, I need this done, the complet, I've made them mad. I don't know what to do. I don't need to tell them how they are making me feel. I'm just going to try and keep the peace. You have the calculator who says things to the communicator like, you don't think things through all of the time. And the communicator's super hurt and feels like they've they're being rejected, which is their worst fear. All of these things you can begin to see how they pile on top of each other. One of the reasons that we don't hear each other is because we're talking past each other and we don't understand how the other person is wired. It's a big problem. The third reason that people don't hear you is because you're not being clear. For 15 years now, I have helped people with their relationships. And one of the things that has been consistent that I actually started noticing 11 years ago now was that men tended to not know why their wives or why their girlfriends wanted out of the relationship? It was really interesting to see unfold at first. They would call in and they would say, I just don't know what happened. It was just one day she she wanted out and she wouldn't tell me why. And the more I began to talk to them and ask, okay, think back. Is there anything over the past couple of years, over the past 10 years, 20 years that she's that she has said that maybe you just didn't hear at the time? And it never failed that they would say, you know what? She did say that she didn't feel like I was listening to her very much, or she wished that we were spending more time together, or she wished that I would work less, but it didn't really seem like that big of a deal. Many times the women in these relationships are trying to tell their husbands how they feel, but their husbands aren't listening. I'm not trying to make this a gender thing by any stretch of the imagination. I'm sure that there are situations where women don't listen to their husbands either about how their husbands feel, but it does really seem that the trend weighs way more heavily on this towards men. Women, when their husbands leave, they typically know why. Their husbands have made it known. And again, I'm not necessarily trying to make this a gender thing, but as a woman who's been in a level of leadership for, again, 12 years now, I do know that it is different for women when they are in situations and in roles that men typically occupy. As a female CEO, I am consistently in mastermind groups, boardroom groups, things like that, which are more heavily male-dependent. And women do have to shift the way that they speak and the way that they show up in order to be seen equally to men. It's just part of how it is. I'm not going to say if it's good or bad necessarily. It's just, I guess, kind of part of the job. But I think it can be more difficult for women to be clear because a lot of our lives we are told to be polite. We're told to be all smiles. We're told to make sure that we're coming across a certain way, to always have our legs crossed, to always make sure that we're dressed appropriately and that we have our makeup on and are fully presentable. That's how women have been taught from the time they were very young. And so, yes, there is kind of an expectation we put on ourselves of I can't be too needy. I can't be too direct, or people will think that I'm a word that I can't say on this YouTube because I love Jesus, even though I cuss a little sometimes, but not here. So that's one of the things that can make it more difficult for women to speak up and to really be clear. But the thing is, there was a book I read a couple of years ago, and the whole premise of it was clear is kind. We think we're being polite, and men can do this too, for sure, but we think that we are being polite when we lessen ourselves. When we, and I'm not gonna, I'm not talking about being humble, being humble is good, but when we say, you know, I would prefer it if you, instead of saying, here's what I need you to do. Sometimes we just need to be clear about what our needs are, about what our desires are, about what our expectations are, clear is kind. And we can be clear in a kind way, but we don't need to sacrifice being kind for being clear. So what do you do? If distractions could be in the way, if the way that each of you see the world and your personality differences could be in the way, if if just your inability to maybe be clear or as clear as you could be at times are all being in the way of someone listening to you, then what do you do? At the end of the day, you can't force someone to listen to you. Many times when people travel, like I know me, when my husband and I lived in Korea, we didn't speak the same language, right? And we tried to communicate with the Koreans, but we didn't try to learn Korean at first. I mean, we did know, we did eventually learn to speak Korean to an extent to be able to get around. But at first, in our first couple of weeks there, when we were needing to catch a taxi, when we were needing to go to the market, when we were needing to figure stuff out, and we couldn't speak the language of the other person, what did we do? We slowed our words and spoke louder. But they still didn't speak our language. It didn't help at all. Being louder and being more forceful doesn't actually help someone hear you. They don't, it doesn't help someone actually understand what you're doing. You can't force someone else to listen to. So what should you do? Become a person worth listening to. It wasn't until, especially if I think about our time in Korea, it wasn't until I actually began to notice the things going on around me, to try and show the other person that I was trying to learn their language, that I would make eye contact and smile and do things that would lead that person to want to help me understand them and try and understand me. That's what led to the biggest difference in us being able to listen to each other and understand each other. So then what can we do in these aspects? Well, first of all, if you're trying to talk to someone who's clearly in the middle of something, they're checking their phone, they're trying to finish up a project at work, you just walk into their office, but they're clearly in the middle of trying to finish in to finish something up, maybe just wait. Don't try and talk to someone while they're distracted. Wait until you can have their full attention. I've done this a couple of times in my life and it's always awkward. It's always awkward. And I've had this done to me a couple of times in my life, and it's always awkward. But it works. And that's this. If I am trying to talk to someone and I see that they are clearly on their phone, I try to be as nice as I can, clear as kind, and can still be kind. I try and be as clear as I can and say, it's okay, finish what you're doing. I'll just wait until you're done. I've had that done to me a couple of times immediately. Like, oh my focus is on you now. Again, that can be kind of weird to do. It feels a bit. But if you want to actually communicate and make sure the other person is listening to you, wait until they can listen to you, especially if you've interrupted their day in order to have this conversation. That's number one. So then number two, what do you do when the other person is speaking a different language than you? You just can't seem to get on the same page because you are different. The way you see the world is different. What can you do then? And again, I think this is the majority of where we feel like people aren't listening to us. There was a situation a couple of years ago where there were some bigger issues happening in my extended family. But it had gotten to the point where I just didn't want to go to a particular family get together for my own reasons. And my reasons were good and were valid and they weren't bad. And I don't think it was a bad thing that I wanted to set a boundary of, you know what, I'm not gonna go to this event. And so that's what I did. But when I told my mom, who was hosting the event, who is the completely, who is the person who just wants everyone to be happy with each other and everyone to just love each other, when I said, Mom, I'm not going. I love you, I love everyone, but for this particular set of circumstances that are going on, I will not be at that event. And it broke her. Her response was, Kimberly, I just want everyone to love each other. Which I felt you're not hearing me. You care more about everyone else being happy and all of us being happy together than me and my feelings and the way that I'm processing some of the things that have been happening. I felt like she cared more about everyone else than me in that moment. But she at that moment felt like I cared. I don't, I actually don't know what she thought I cared about at that moment, but she felt like there was a like an earthquake about to happen that was going to tear the whole family apart. And that's her biggest fear. And so we kept talking past each other until finally we were able to just actually sit and truly try and hear from the other person. I think a lot of times when we're trying to just talk past the other person, we care more about having our needs and desires heard than hearing what the other person's needs and desires are as well. Now, I think the fear that people have in that is, well, I'm just gonna always be catering to another person. I'm never actually going to be able to make sure that my needs are met. And I know and I understand that. And I think it's a valid concern. We can end up becoming doormats just trying to make everyone else happy. That's not what this is about. This is about being able to do both and I wanna be able to listen to you and understand where your heart and your needs and your fears are, but also I'm gonna meet that with here's mine, here's my hurts, here's my heart, here's my needs, my desires. Let's figure out how to move forward from here, either how to compromise or how to agree to disagree, but still love each other. And in that particular situation with my mom, I didn't go to that family get together. But you know what? My mom and I sat together and we ended up having that heart-to-heart, like I was just talking about. And it was good. It was okay. Both of us understood each other's needs. We didn't have any hard feelings towards each other, and everything's been good since. I needed to be able to set that boundary for that situation and for people to honor it. And my mom understood she needed to honor it. And I understood that I couldn't set a firm boundary that made my mom feel like I was never gonna come back to a family get together. So we worked it out. And I feel like we just need to have more of that kind of process with people we feel like we are talking past. I know that that probably could have helped me and my coworker back in January for us to actually, instead of both of us trying to be right, he wanted more data. I had my gut feel, which was right. But either way, he wanted to be able to see the data for himself. Maybe I could have leaned more into that and said, okay, let's go down that path. Let's let's get the data. What is that gonna look like? How long is that gonna take? And let's set a secondary deadline instead of just allowing time to pass and then ended up feeling completely disrespected. I ended up feeling completely disrespected by the time it came up again, and I realized it still had been done. I was part of the problem. But it's harder to realize and ask yourself that question, at least I know it is for me. I want to ask the question, why are you not listening to me? But maybe the harder question I should be asking is Am I being the kind of person worth listening to right now? It's a much harder one to deal with and to wrestle with. And then finally, be clear. You have to learn to be clear in your communication. I said it a little bit before, but clear is kind, of course. What is it you want to say? Say it in a way that is kind but clear. My husband and I are very different personality styles as well. And one of the things about my husband that I've learned over our 15 years of marriage is when he says we need to leave at 10 a.m., what's gonna actually happen is he's gonna be ready to go at 9.50 and wonder why I'm not ready. A couple of times this has kind of come to a head where he's it's 9.50 and he is saying we are out the door. Although I asked and he said we were leaving at 10. What I really want to say is, Rob, I asked you what time you said 10. Leave me alone. I have 10 more minutes. Instead, what I have learned to say is on the front end, hey babe, I just want to make sure that I'm well aware of the time we need to leave. So tell me the time that you expect me to be ready for us to walk out the door. And then when he responds with whatever, 10 a.m., I say, okay, great. So just to be clear, I am not gonna be ready to leave until 10 a.m. That's communication. Sender, receiver, message received, right? Just to be clear so that we have that on the front end now. And when it comes 9:50, and he really wants because he's ahead of time. I'm never ahead of time. He was in the army. To be early is to be late. I was not and would have died in the army. So I'm always late to everything. That's that's the situation that we have to work with. And so at 9:50, when he's like ready to get out in the car, now what he knows to do is he knows he told, he said, 10. So instead, he says, Hey, babe, I'll be out in the car waiting for you. Now I need to honor my part and make sure I'm in that car at 10 a.m. But we have learned how to make it work because I have learned to be clear. And of course, in our relationship, he has learned to be very clear about things with me as well like, do not touch his stuff. I know not to move anything that he owns. But he's clear. So I know what to do and what not to do. That helps us have better relationships and understand how to be a person worth listening to because when you say something, you You mean it. And it's something the other person can respect because they know what to do or what not to do. I'll end with this. When my husband and I adopted our two kids from India, they did not speak any English. Our daughter was four and a half at the time, and our son had just turned two. And communication was not like this. And everyone said, you'll learn how to communicate over time. And I thought, I don't know how that's going to happen, but I guess we're all going to see. But the thing is, even though we did not speak each other's language, even though when I tried to talk to them, they wanted to understand, they wanted to listen, but they just couldn't. The thing that made the biggest difference was me learning how to meet their needs, how to pull them into wanting to listen to me instead of trying to push myself into their heads, into their hearts, into their lives. Instead of trying to say, you do this or you do that. It was seeing how bringing them to the fridge and showing them different foods that we have and offering it to them and waiting until their eyes lit up and seeing, hey, maybe you want to try this and then offering it to them. It was that kind of nonverbal communication that ultimately led to later such stronger verbal communication. If you feel like no one is listening to you, maybe the hard question that you need to ask yourself about the way that you're showing up is am I showing up as a person that's worth listening to? I would love to know what you thought about this video and what you learned from it. Put that in the comments below. I read every single comment. I love to reply to them as well. But if you are asking yourself, well, how can I know more about this? I am struggling. I'm struggling with knowing how to show up better, how to be the kind of person that someone wants to listen to. I have a free assessment that you can take. You can find the link to it in the description below this video. Completely free assessment. And it's going to show you the four different areas of yourself, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. And it's going to show you the areas that you're struggling the most that are affecting the way that you're showing up and the areas that you're doing really well in, because we all need some wins in our lives. I'd love for you to take that. Again, you can find it in the show notes below. Until next time, stay strong.