Specific key words you can watch for are value words like ‘love’, ‘connection’, ‘trust’, ‘contribution’, ‘honesty’, and so on.

Even negative values as well, like ‘dishonesty’, ‘failure’, ‘regret’.

What you want to watch for are words that are often repeated, and often in the same context.

For example, if someone talks about her best friend and mentions ‘trust’, chats about her friends and calls them ‘trustworthy’, and needs to find a guy that she ‘can trust’, then you’ll know that trust is a very big deal to her.

I admit, it’s not easy And you have to do a great deal of listening and remembering.

So far, this post has only dealt with a passive method of finding out people’s values, but in the next post I’m going to share some tips on how you can proactively find them out.

That having been said, I’m glad someone found this short little article useful still.

(Gee Pete, you sure keep late hours)

Utilising the abstract words that will probably define the value of the person I am talking to,I paraphrase what is being said. That in turn build rapport and establish that I understand.

This is cool. Simplified version of what active listening is all about. When rapport is established, common ground is achieved and awareness is heightened unconsciously….

Nice practical communication skill.

For those of you who are finding it difficult to reach out with your auditory sense, it will do good if you can now remember the last time you listened hard enough to understand.

Have fun and discover how else words can make a big difference.