How to Be a Better Listener: Jim & Angela Davis

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How to Be a Better Listener: Jim & Angela Davis

Guests:Jim and Angela Davis

From the series:You’re Listening. Why Aren’t They Talking? Jim & Angela Davis (Day 1 of 2)

Air date:October 5, 2026

Jim (00:04):

When you know someone’s story, everything they do makes sense. And so that has been this kind of mind shift. If I’m looking at somebody and what they’re doing doesn’t make sense to me, the problem is that I don’t understand their story and I need to be more curious. And this is true of my children, this is true of our marriage, this is true in the church.

Ann (00:28):

Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave (00:35):

And I’m Dave Wilson and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

All right, we got Jim and Angela Davis in the studio. And you know what I found out?

Jim (00:54):

What is that?

Dave (00:55):

I found out just a little while ago that Angela didn’t even know she was coming. So I wrote the FamilyLife, Angela didn’t know she’s coming blues.

Angela:

Let’s hear it.

Dave:

I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t even know what’s going to come out. I woke up this morning, and my husband Jim said, “We’re on the show.” I woke up this morning.

Angela (01:20):

Oh my goodness.

Dave (01:21):

I got to talk about something I don’t even know.

Ann:

That’s not true.

Dave:

Well, we’re on the show with Dave and Ann talking about curious listening.

Angela (01:34):

Nice.

Ann (01:38):

There we go.

Jim:

This is an opening.

Dave (01:41):

The editors will probably cut that out.

Ann (01:43):

Maybe we should just talk about communication of how important that is in America.

Jim (01:48):

We had to work some communication. I may have said yes to this before I properly informed Angela, but she’s here and excited to meet you.

Dave (01:58):

Angela, when you heard it, were you excited? You’re like, “Oh, that’d be great.” Or was like, “Are you kidding me?”

Angela (02:03):

No, I started to panic. Absolutely. I was like, “What?”

Ann (02:07):

This is very typical for Dave and I. And he’ll say, “You’ll be fine. Just get up there and talk.” Is that what he said?

Angela (02:11):

It’s like you’re speaking for him. Yes, same, 100%.

Dave (02:15):

Is this a pastor thing? I don’t know. Maybe.

Angela (02:17):

They believe in us so much. I think you guys believe in us.

Ann:

Is it a compliment kind of?

Angela:

I think so.

Jim (02:22):

We both know y’all do great. I wouldn’t put you in a situation where I didn’t think you would flourish.

Angela (02:27):

But at the time, because this was like Saturday when I found out.

Dave (02:31):

All right. So tell our, we got listeners and watchers—they’re watching—what you guys do. I mean, you’re local. You just drove over here.

Jim (02:39):

We did.

Angela (02:40):

I’m a mental health counselor here in Orlando working in private practice. It’s pretty much my day job. And then we have four kids.

Ann (02:46):

We’ve had you guys on several times. One, talking about your heart attack.

Jim:

That’s right.

Ann:

That was a big deal. I had a lot of people call me and say, “That was a great episode.”

Angela (02:56):

Good.

Dave (02:56):

So thanks for having that heart attack.

Angela:

Yeah, right.

Dave (02:59):

So we could create a great show for people.

Ann (03:00):

But then you were on with your book. What was your other book called?

Jim (03:03):

The Great Dechurching.

Ann (03:04):

And you’re a pastor.

Jim (03:05):

That’s right. I pastor Orlando Grace Church here in town. Dave has preached at my church.

Ann (03:09):

And this is going to be your next book probably.

Jim (03:12):

We’ll see. It’s a fun—it could be. It’s something that we’re passionate about.

Ann (03:17):

Curious Listening.

Jim (03:19):

Yeah.

Dave (03:19):

Never heard that term. When you sent me here, here’s some thoughts on where the book’s going. Curious Listening. What does that mean?

Jim (03:26):

I realized that when you texted me last night and said, “What are we talking about?” But it is something that both of us have grown really passionate and excited about from the aspect of just wanting to grow and learn. Curious Listening is what I would call a lost skill in our culture, a lost art. It’s listening, really wanting to understand rather than just respond. It’s wanting to—

Dave (03:55):

Oh wait, I wasn’t listening real close. Say that again. You know that joke was coming.

Jim (03:59):

Well, this is a skill.

Dave (04:00):

No, no, no. When you said that, because I read that in your book proposal, wanting to ? instead of respond. Say it again.

Jim (04:07):

Yeah. Wanting to understand, wanting to know somebody. Now this is admittedly something that you two do very well anyway, but least of which you do this very often here in the studio. But listening not just to respond, not to win, not to beat somebody or be right, but to really understand somebody and know somebody. And the implications for us in church, in therapy, in marriage and in parenting are just huge. And I really started to become aware of this when I watched her go through her graduate program in counseling. And I began to see her developing skills that I have no idea what goes on inside the room when she’s with somebody. But outside of it, I would see people begin to just open up in ways that I had—I mean, she was always good at it, but there was something new. And then I began to see her being curious of me.

(05:03):

And that really opened this really sweet part of our marriage that I don’t feel like we had experienced up until that point.

Ann (05:12):

Angela, did you know? You’d been learning and so did you think, oh, I’m going to apply this?

Angela (05:17):

No. I think it actually just changed inside of me. Wow. It’s a mindset shift. I can remember before I went to grad school, I was a really good listener. I mean, people would’ve said that was a great quality of mine. But now looking back, the way I listened was I kind of got immersed in someone’s story. I was along for the ride. I can remember in the beginning part of counseling, you’re having to think through exactly what you guys do. You’re thinking about, okay, I’m curious about this aspect. I want to know this. I want to know that. I want to understand how it impacts them or what they’re feeling. You’re probably thinking those things as you have guests, but in actual life, a lot of us don’t do that. And so when I was sitting in the chair for the first time, I was going, this is hard to get my brain to start being curious about the other person instead of just being along for the ride.

(06:08):

There was something that had to shift inside of me. Then I go the other way and I’m like, it’s hard for me to listen because now I’m trying to think about a question. It’s like going to the mental gym to try to develop this characteristic. This is something I work with with clients. I mean, I think for every single human being to actually make this shift in our brains to be curious about what’s going on in someone’s life is very important.

Dave (06:31):

I know that when we became the host of FamilyLife Today, what’s it been? Eight years? Nine years?

Jim (06:36):

Wow, that long.

Dave (06:37):

It’s been a while. That was what shocked me. I thought the job was, come in, talk, talk about marriage. I’m a pastor, I’m a speaker. Maybe it fits our gifting and I’m like; that’s not the job. The job is active. I didn’t know the term then, curious, listening. You cannot take a second and let your mind drift off. Jim’s talking, Angela’s talking, you got to be locked in knowing where to take this conversation and hearing what’s said. I mean, somebody that’s been really good at that her whole life is sitting right here.

Ann (07:13):

Well, I think you’ve become a lot better and I probably have too, but I’m fascinated by people’s stories.

Dave:

Yeah.

Angela:

Me too, Ann.

Ann:

I always have that in my mind, like why did they come to that point or that conclusion or that? But this is when I realized I wasn’t good at it when our kids were teenagers. I wasn’t curious at all.

Jim (07:34):

There’s something that switches in our head to want to tell them what to do, establish boundaries, create an atmosphere where you will respect me. But that response, I mean, and sometimes that’s needed. I don’t want to minimize that, but it’s kind of the defensive side of parenting. The offensive side where we’re gaining ground is really understanding their heart and their fears and their wounds that doesn’t, at least in our house, happen very naturally. And so we have to think about how do we create spaces for that? And not that we’re the best examples of it. We were driving over here this morning just talking about, how can we create more spaces for this?

Dave (08:11):

You’re telling Angela where you were going today? “I thought we were going out for breakfast.”

Jim (08:19):

I told her we were just going to hang out with Dave and Ann. She said great.

Ann (08:22):

And I think part of it is, as parents, our job is to teach, train, disciple our kids. So we’re instructing them, but before they’re even teenagers, to be curious about, oh, what do you think about that? Why do you think that? It’s hard sometimes to turn the one off and put the other one on. Kind of that thinking cap like, I’m going to be a curious listener, which we should do all the time with everyone.

Dave (08:47):

So why don’t we?

Jim (08:49):

I really think there may be more than this, there probably is, but there’s at least a spiritual side and a cultural side. The spiritual side, when the fall happened, when sin entered into the world, we got new instincts in terms of how we communicate. We have instincts of fear and anxiety and the instinct to want to win or beat or compensate for our own insecurities and fears in the ways to be defensive, justify—

Ann:

—hide.

Jim:

—hide, blame shift. All these things entered into our instinctual mode and all of those things work against wanting to curiously listen to somebody, hear their story and really see the image of God as marred as it may be inside somebody else. So you have the spiritual component, but then I think there’s a cultural component. We live in an age where talking is more prized than listening, where winning is more prized than understanding.

(09:47):

And I think we see that in the political realm. We see that on social media. Everything about social media is geared toward selfishness. I want to see a certain thing. I want to project a certain thing. And when we post, we’re talking, we’re not listening. So there’s a lot, I think culturally, and this is probably true to some extent in every culture, but I think uniquely in our moment that works against curious listening and trains us to do the opposite.

Dave (10:21):

All right, Ann, quick question. What would I say is my favorite thing about you?

Ann (10:26):

Is this a trick question?

Dave (10:27):

See, this is why we need Spouse-Ology.

Ann (10:30):

Spouse-Ology is a couple’s trivia game that puts how well you know each other to the test with plenty of laughs along the way.

Dave (10:37):

Yeah, there’s 240 questions. So whether you’ve been married two years or 46 like us—

Ann (10:43):

—there’s always something new to discover.

Dave (10:45):

All right, go grab Spouse-Ology for your next date night or couple’s game night at shop.FamilyLife.com.

Ann (10:52):

And Dave, the answer was my sense of humor.

Dave (10:57):

Sure. Let’s go with that.

One of the things I try to communicate in the communication talk at the Weekend to Remember®, it’s what you just said. When you try to communicate, there’s two things we often think about, skills, and that’s what usually people think. I got to be a better communicator. I got to articulate what I’m saying or listen better. But the other thing I think is as important, if not more important, is attitude. And so I’ve always said at that little section of the Weekend to Remember, the best listeners are humble. It’s like the character quality that makes you a great listener. It’s—

Jim:

100%.

Dave:

—not about me. It doesn’t really matter what I want to say or what I think. It’s about them right now. And to be humble enough to say, “I’m not going to interrupt. I’m not going to cut off. I’m not going to respond.

(11:47):

I’m going to listen and ask a follow-up question.” Is that true? Because I think humility, it could be the most important character quality in a marriage. It’s like, “It’s not about me. I’m going to lay down my life to love you and listen to you.”

Angela (11:58):

One of the things that I talk about often, and I think we both talk about, is that it’s impossible to be critical and curious at the same time. Think about that.

Jim:

You can’t.

Angela:

You actually can’t do both of those. And so when we’re coming from a place of criticism, it changes everything. We’ve got a tone about us. My kids will say that; “Mom, you just come in with a tone.” And it’s right.

Ann:

It’s true.

Angela:

I’ve already made a judgment on something. I’m being very critical, but we will come at people like that. And we have to be able to change that shift in our mind to curiosity. If I recognize that I’m coming in with a defensive, I’m coming at you trying to win posture, that’s not humble. Curiosity and humility really go together. So that’s what I keep in my mind. When I notice my tone, when I notice my defensiveness, when my walls are going up or I’m just trying to win, I’m automatically aware that I’m not curious.

(12:51):

Okay, we got to take a step back, humble ourselves and start to ask good questions.

Ann (12:56):

I’m just going to say as parents, our kids hear and feel our judgment tones.

Angela (13:04):

Oh, mine do. They’ve told me.

Ann (13:06):

Mine do. I can remember one of our kids was in high school and he was talking about this guy and I said, “Is that the guy that’s always high and he’s always smoking pot?” And I think I said something, “Is that that bad kid?” That’s what I said. “Is that that bad kid that’s always high and he’s always smoking pot?” It’s judgment.

Angela (13:22):

Yeah.

Ann (13:23):

I remember after that thinking, “I need to ponder this. I wonder what his story is.” Kids that are—

Dave (13:29):

That’s curious.

Ann (13:30):

Yeah.

Angela (13:31):

It’s exactly what we’re talking about.

Ann (13:32):

And that’s what I’m talking about. I had one of our preschool granddaughters was saying, “Oh, that’s the bad kid in school. He’s always in trouble.” And I remember saying to her, “I wonder what his story is. I wonder what’s going on.” Because we pass our judgment skills onto our kids. And if we’re judging, they’re judging. And so man, that’s convicting. Jesus didn’t do that. Jesus always knew the story and was always digging into it.

Jim (13:59):

Well, you open up a lot of doors right there. I mean, I love everything you are saying. I think last time we were on the radio, we also—we love our counselor. We have a counselor, her name’s Kim Johnson. I’ll give her that shout out. But she says, and this has been kind of revolutionary for me in this process, when you know someone’s story, everything they do makes sense.

Ann (14:21):

Yes.

Jim (14:22):

And it doesn’t mean that what they do is healthy or right, but when you know someone’s story, everything they do makes sense. And so that has been this kind of mind shift. If I’m looking at somebody and what they’re doing doesn’t make sense to me, the problem is that I don’t understand their story and I need to be more curious. And this is true of my children, this is true of our marriage, this is true in the church. It’s true in a lot of different places. And then it actually makes me think of you and Ivy.

Angela (14:46):

Yeah. This happened with one of our kids. A couple months ago, somebody in her class got expelled and all the kids are talking about it and all the judgments that they make for that reason. And I was just asking her, I wonder what is going on in his life that would make him make that decision? What do you think is going on? What do you know about him? And she started to actually change that in her brain to the question. Yeah. Oh, I don’t know. I do know this and this. I was like, exactly. How do you think that makes him feel? Do you think he might be acting out of this? So it was really helpful to walk a teenager through—

Dave (15:19):

Yeah, that’s good.

Angela (15:20):

Yeah. Let’s question, what is going on in someone’s life? What is their story?

Dave (15:24):

Well, I’m curious.

Angela (15:25):

Okay, let’s go.

Dave (15:27):

You said you have a counselor.

Jim (15:30):

We do. Yeah.

Dave (15:31):

And a lot of people are like, “Wait, Pastor? Weekend to Remember marriage, FamilyLife speaker?

Ann (15:37):

And I thought Angela was a counselor.

Angela:

Yeah.

Dave (15:40):

But I mean, seriously, some couples think that’s like, “Oh, you got to really be messed up if you have a counselor.” Talk about that. I’m curious. Why?

Angela (15:49):

Well, and I think we might’ve mentioned this the last time after the heart attack.

Dave (15:53):

You did. I remember that.

Angela (15:54):

He changed a lot. And I think me trying to adjust, it changed our marriage. I mean, we go through these seasons in our marriage where one of us or maybe both of us change and we become different people and we get stuck wanting them to go back to who they were instead of making adjustments to who they are now.

Ann (16:12):

That’s huge right there.

Angela (16:13):

It is. It is.

Ann (16:14):

Because we all do that. They change like, I don’t think I know this person and do I like this new person?

Angela (16:20):

Yes. That’s kind of the stage we were in and we were like, “We need to go back to marriage counseling.” Let’s talk about not just communication, but when you really get into good marriage counseling, you find out what are the wounds underneath your kind of unmet attachment needs that we’re operating out of. When those are getting hit, then these defensive patterns start and we’re pushing each other away in some form because it’s hurting us and we can’t name it. And that was just hugely helpful for us. And then you’ve gone on to do some more work on your own, but as far as a couple, highly recommend it.

Jim (16:55):

Yeah. I have a monthly standing counseling appointment and there are times I don’t even know what we’re going to talk about. I mean, there’s nothing, but every time I’m like, this is so good. And a lot of it is because she is a good, curious listener. And so there’s a lot here. And you mentioned Jesus. At some point we can come back to Jesus because that’s the most important. But in terms of neuroscience, we have these deep needs to be seen, to be, let’s see if I can do this. This is your realm. To be soothed, to be, there’s two more S’s.

Angela (17:27):

Safe and secure.

Jim (17:28):

Safe and secure. Seen, soothed, safe and secure.

Angela (17:33):

So that’s basically just defining what secure attachment is. And as believers, we would say God has created us with those needs. Every person in this world wants, number one, to be seen. We want to be seen and known. And then a lot of problems happen if we don’t have anyone who soothes us. So we think about that with a baby when we come into the world. A baby cannot regulate its emotions. It needs a parent or a caregiver to do that. But even as adults, that soothing is more like someone empathizing with me does wonders for my nervous system or someone just even helping a calm, peaceful presence calms me down. So that’s the soothe. And that makes us feel safe and secure. And those are very important S words, characteristics that we need in life. And curious listening is what helps provide all that for a person.

Ann (18:23):

That’s so good.

Dave (18:24):

We know what a baby does when they’re not soothed.

Angela (18:27):

Yeah.

Dave (18:28):

What do adults do?

Angela (18:28):

Typically, they move into a state of isolation. And when we isolate, we are often, it can be distance, it could be just walls. When you think about the levels of communication we talk about at the Weekend to Remember, then I’m just staying up in the facts, opinions, cliche area. I’m not moving into anything like vulnerability or transparency. So as adults, we hide, we put up walls, we isolate. And when we do that, especially when we’re going through suffering, then we’re only encoding a narrative in our mind that’s going to be filled with anger or bitterness, guilt or shame, fear and anxiety because we don’t have anyone else’s perspective and we don’t have anyone asking us questions to help us flesh out like, well, yeah, what is really true? Because all I have is my perspective.

Ann (19:18):

Oh, that’s so important.

Jim (19:19):

Even thinking of how change really happens. And again, this is something I felt like when you have a spouse that goes through a graduate degree in counseling and learn all these things, I should get a secondary certificate or something.

Angela (19:30):

He enabled me to do it. I feel like you do.

Jim (19:32):

I learned so much. And we tend to think as pastors that change is going to happen when we can bring the right information to somebody. Or as a spouse, change is going to happen when I can change her information, she is going to feel differently.

Angela (19:49):

I’m going to fix you.

Jim (19:50):

I’m going to fix you. That’s what it is. And curious listening is not a posture of fixing, but understanding, but understanding actually facilitates change more because change doesn’t begin with the solution. Change begins with someone feeling seen and not alone in their pain. That’s the beginning of change. And there actually is some more neuroscience behind it that I’m going to oversimplify because this is not my specialty, but the brain is interestingly, from what I understand, you have your front and your back and they’re somewhat divided. I don’t know why God chose to do it that way, but you have your prefrontal cortex that is more your reasoning, and then you have your amygdala in the back, which is more your instinctual feel. So when you feel anxiety and fear—

Angela (20:35):

—anger.

Jim (20:36):

—anger, those kinds of emotions, they come from the back of our brain. And then the reasoning part happens fairly separately, but there’s something that happens when we can talk about what we feel with the front of our brain. We can reason about why we feel what we feel. It connects the front and the back in a way that lowers defenses, barriers, emotions. And so with curious listening, just really having a posture of I want to understand your story. I want to understand you, not in a condescending way. I don’t want to make somebody feel like a project, but a genuine, I will be happier when I can understand you better.

Ann (21:19):

Do you think—and let’s bring Jesus back into that. Don’t you wonder what it was like to have a conversation with him?

Jim (21:27):

Well, we have some insight. Because we’ve seen him. We have the New Testament and it was recorded. And what’s interesting, and I do want to be careful, we’re not saying there’s never a time for bold proclamation. We’re not saying that. Proverbs has a lot to say about communication. James says it. Paul says in Ephesians, “Pray for me that I may proclaim the gospel boldly as I ought.” So there’s a place for boldness and I don’t want to minimize that. But when you look at Jesus’ bold statements and He has them, they’re targeted. You see them going to the Pharisees, the religious leaders, demons, you see them going to other rulers. But to the average people, the blind man, the paralyzed, the leper, the woman at the well, Nicodemus, his posture is very different. He asks questions in some cases that all of us feel like we would know the answer to, “Do you want to be healed?” To the blind man in Mark 10, “What do you want me to do?” We know the answers.

(22:25):

Jesus knew the answer. But there were some deeper places that we might not know the answer, but Jesus did, and he’s still asking questions. And he does it with the woman of the well. It gives her agency and dignity. One of my favorite places is the road to Emmaus when the disciples, after Jesus’ death, they did not know what was going on with the resurrection yet, and they’re walking down the road and Jesus walks up to them and they didn’t know it was Jesus. And they’re upset and Jesus says, “What’s going on?” And they said, “Have you not heard about all that has happened?” And Jesus says, “Tell me what has happened.” And He gives them this opportunity to process their grief and their unmet expectation and their confusion. And then He makes himself known. And Luke says that when that happens, their hearts burned within them.

(23:15):

There’s something there about Jesus asking these questions, giving agency dignity, helping us process confusion, hurt, unmet expectations that I think is really important.

Dave (23:30):

What a great day with Jim and Angela.

Ann (23:32):

I love being with Jim and Angela Davis. We’ve been talking about curious listening.

Dave (23:36):

You are the best curious listener I know.

Ann (23:39):

I don’t think I am, but thanks. That’s super nice of you.

Dave (23:41):

No, it’s so great to be married to you and watch you do what you do and even do it in here and the applications to marriage and family and parenting.

Ann (23:50):

Yeah. And we have resources. If you want any kind of parenting help, we have a place that you can go.

Dave (23:54):

Yeah, just go to FamilyLife.com/ParentingHelp.

Ann (23:58):

Before we’re done today, I just want to remind our listeners that our vision at FamilyLife is every home, a godly home, and we need your help to get there. And when you become a FamilyLife Partner, your monthly support makes that vision actually possible.

Dave (24:15):

Yeah, you’ll get access to exclusive updates and events and the chance to join our partners community. But more than that, you’re helping change the future of families. So the question is, will you come alongside us and alongside families in need?

Ann (24:30):

And you can go to FamilyLifeToday.com and read more about it and become a partner. Just click the donate button at the top. And again, you can go to FamilyLifeToday.com.

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