How to be a Better Listener
Robin LaBarbera • August 2, 2023
Radically transform your relationships by practicing this one skill.
Listening is not just hearing what the other party in the conversation has to say. Poet Alice Duer Miller said this about listening: “Listening means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told us.”
We’ve all experienced conversations where the other person wasn't truly engaged, leaving us feeling annoyed and disrespected. Active listening is the key to overcoming this and creating meaningful connections with others.
The Importance of Active Listening
Experts reveal that 45% of communication is listening, yet the average person only retains half to a quarter of the information they hear. This lack of active listening can lead to missed opportunities for connection and understanding.
Active listening is about more than just hearing words; it involves understanding the speaker's emotions and intentions, paying full attention, and avoiding distractions.
Benefits of Being an Active Listener
- Building Connections: Active listening helps others feel comfortable sharing information with you, fostering regular and meaningful communication.
- Building Trust: When you give others your full attention without interruptions or judgments, they are more likely to confide in you and trust your support.
- Identifying and Solving Problems: Active listening allows you to detect challenges and difficulties others are facing, enabling you to offer timely solutions.
- Increasing Understanding: Good listeners are always eager to learn and grow their knowledge base, and active listening aids in retaining valuable information.
Barriers to Active Listening
Several barriers can hinder active listening, such as:
- Judging the Speaker or Topic: Personal biases and opinions can distract you from truly listening and understanding the message.
- Preparing Replies: Formulating responses while someone is speaking takes your focus away from the speaker and their message.
- Distraction or Daydreaming: External distractions or wandering thoughts can divert your attention from the conversation.
- Relating to Past Experiences: Drawing parallels with personal experiences may cause you to lose focus on the present conversation.
- Preoccupation: When preoccupied with other thoughts or stress, you may struggle to fully engage with what is being said.
Exercises to Practice Active Listening
To enhance active listening skills, consider trying these exercises:
- Paraphrasing: Instead of offering unsolicited advice, rephrase what the speaker said to demonstrate understanding.
- Avoid Interruptions: Resist the urge to interrupt while the other person is speaking and withhold judgment.
- Use Nonverbal Cues: Show attentiveness through facial expressions, eye contact, and positive body language.
- Ask Questions: Demonstrate interest by asking open-ended questions to encourage the speaker to share more.
- Learn from Others: Observe active listening in action, such as in television interviews, to learn from different conversational styles.
Active listening is a powerful skill that can transform your interactions and relationships. By making a conscious effort to engage with others, you'll create deeper connections, build trust, and gain a better understanding of the world around you.
Embrace the art of active listening and watch as your social interactions flourish and your personal growth accelerates.
Boost your personal and professional success by enrolling in one of our online, self-paced, interactive mini courses like Developing Your Active Listening Skills at LaBarbera Learning Solutions. Click here to learn more.
Faith-based education does more than teach — it builds brotherhood. New research reveals how community drives transformation in prison.
Can data reveal human flourishing after prison? Five rounds of reentry evaluation at House of Mercy say yes.
When we think about prison education, we tend to ask one question: Does it reduce recidivism? It's a reasonable question, but it may be the wrong one. My recently published study in the Journal of Global Education and Research asked a different question: Does participating in a seminary-level theological education program actually change how people flourish while they're still incarcerated and after they come home? The answer, across 266 participants in six facilities and four states, was yes. Participants in The Urban Ministry Institute (TUMI) prison program showed higher scores on established well-being measures, healthier thinking patterns, stronger coping skills, and more positive relationships than comparison groups. And those gains didn't evaporate at the gate. Program graduates in reentry carried the markers of flourishing into post-release life. What flourishing actually looks like Flourishing isn't a soft concept. Drawing on Diener's Flourishing Scale, a validated instrument used in positive psychology research, the study measured constructs such as purpose, engagement, meaning, and positive relationships. These aren't warm feelings. They're measurable conditions that predict sustained behavior change. What the data showed was this: when incarcerated men and women are given access to rigorous academic study grounded in community and accountability, something shifts. Not just in what they know, but in who they are becoming. The research identified five mechanisms driving that transformation: deep educational engagement, authentic peer community, relational accountability, future-oriented purpose, and restorative action through mentorship. Each reinforces the others. Together, they create the conditions for the kind of change that lasts. Why this matters beyond the research Policymakers, funders, and program designers consistently reach for recidivism as their primary metric. But recidivism tells us something quite narrow — whether someone returned to prison within a given window. It tells us almost nothing about whether a person is living well, contributing to their community, or building a meaningful life. If we want justice systems that actually produce human flourishing, we need to measure what flourishing looks like. And we need to fund and design programs that create the conditions for it. Faith-based theological education in prison, when done with rigor and relational integrity, does that. The full peer-reviewed article, "Religious Higher Education in Prison in the United States: The Importance of Well-Being," is published in the Journal of Global Education and Research (Vol. 10, Issue 2, 2026). Read it here.
We rarely discuss people serving life sentences who've genuinely transformed. Karen Brown's 40-year journey shows why we should.
What does dignity look like for our unhoused neighbors? Sometimes it is a shower, sometimes it is a mailbox, sometimes it is simply being seen.
Measuring flourishing is not simply about identifying domains or creating a reliable tool. It requires asking questions in a way that respects the dignity and lived experience of the people responding. That cannot be done from a distance. It requires proximity.
This is why prison education isn’t just a moral argument—it’s a practical one. It reduces future crime. It lowers costs. It strengthens communities. And it saves lives, sometimes in the most unexpected places.
This research contributes to a growing body of evidence showing the value of high-quality educational programs in correctional settings—not only for reducing recidivism but for fostering human flourishing.
Mary Flin’s example challenges me to rethink what it means to serve, to listen, and to love my own neighbors. Her life is a living answer to the question: What if every neighborhood had a chaplain?
The evidence is clear: faith-based educational programs like The Urban Ministry Institute offer far more than theological training—they cultivate well-being, leadership, and resilience among incarcerated individuals.
