# The Power of Active Listening

- **Episode:** [229](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/229.md) (2025-09-04)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** active-listening, communication
- **Time:** 9:39–11:20 (start 579s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/229?t=579](https://truthliesandwork.com/229?t=579)

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[9:39] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[9:40] Meghan French Dunbar: Can you, do you wanna tell me more about that? Or, is there anything from that that you wanna expand upon? Or, how did that make you feel? Or anything that is open-ended and invites them to gently go further if they want to. I think the like simplest question that doesn't put pressure on is, is there anything more that you wanted to talk about with that? Or is there anything more that I can understand, that you can help me understand about that? And it's such— when you're with someone, I've been with people who are like master active listening. And when you hear people like Bill Clinton, I've never met him, but people are— when people like talk about Bill Clinton, they used to be like, he makes you feel like you're the only person in the room. Whenever you hear that, Yeah. That means that person is an active listener because they actually, even if it's 1 or 2 follow-up questions where they show they're genuinely engaged in what you have to say. One, we're very rarely actually present with the people that we're together with at this point in life, with everyone on phones and distracted by all the things. And then 2, even if you are present with someone, we often fall into that rhythm of I say something, you say something, I'm waiting to say something that I wanna say. But just asking people to expand and elaborate on what they are actually saying and being genuinely interested in it as a gorgeous skill to work on
[11:10] Al Elliott: You've interviewed, as you said, over 1,000 people. How has this active listening helped you to understand people better than just asking questions?