How to Win Anyone over with Rockstar Communication Skills

4 Tips to Stop Interrupting

Many people have problems with interrupting others. With constant interruptions, effective communication is almost impossible. When we interrupt someone, it usually means we are not listening to them.

By offering our thoughts and opinions before the other person has properly expressed theirs, we run the risk of mentally shutting down from the conversation and ignoring valuable new information and insights.

If you recognise this tendency in yourself, try the following communication skills to stop interrupting

1. Communication skill: Write down what you wanted to say…

…instead of blurting it out.

Often, we interrupt because we don’t want to forget what comes to our minds while someone else is speaking.

As if to remind ourselves and “put it out there”, we blurt out what we’re thinking instead of writing it down.

If you don’t have a paper to hand, make a mental note and come back to your thoughts once it is the designated time for asking questions.

2. Communication skill: Focus on keeping your mouth shut.

And this means, physically focusing on keeping your lips together. You can do this as easy as you can focus on any aspect of your body.

Try it now: pay close attention to the pressure of your seat on your bottom. See how easy it is?

Often, we simply open our mouth while someone is talking because we’ve lost control over it, and control often stems from focus.

Of course, if we lose focus on keeping our mouth shut, we may still lapse…

NOTE: The best way to answer that nagging question about practice growth or marketing or patient volume in the back of your mind is to book a free 15-minute compatibility call. Get some options and go away with a clear idea of what’s possible.

3. Communication skill: If you find yourself interrupting, correct yourself…

…and invite who you’re listening to continue speaking.

Saying something like: “Oh, sorry, please go on…” will serve to apologise for the interruption and will even encourage more openness from the other person.

As you do, don’t forget tip 1 and jot down what you wanted to say.

For habitual interrupters, this can be hard work. Like any new habit, it’s worth it though!

4. Communication skill: Practice not interrupting.

Yes, that means listening to someone and waiting three seconds (try saying “one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi” to yourself and that is about the amount of time you need to pause) before talking.

One thing I’ve found useful is to ask “was there anything else you wanted to say about that?” before proceeding with my point of view.

Doing this often results in a “no” from the other person. This means that I can be sure that I’ve heard everything they want to say for the moment and that they’ll be ready to listen to me in the same way I’ve been listening to them.

About the author

Rod Solar
Founder & Fractional CMO

Rod co-founded LiveseySolar and acts as a Fractional CMO for our customers. He’s on a mission to help transform the lives of 10,000 people through vision correction surgery by 2024. To achieve that, he inspires his customers to make confident decisions that will help 50,000 people take the first step towards vision correction.

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Meet our Founders

We’re passionate about helping leaders of high-quality, growth-minded practice owners double their practice revenue

Rod Solar

Founder & Scalable Business Advisor

Rod co-founded LiveseySolar and acts as a Fractional CMO and Scalable Business Advisor for our customers. He’s on a mission to help transform the lives of 10,000 people with vision correction surgery by 2024. To achieve that, he inspires his customers to make confident decisions that will help 50,000 people take the first step towards vision correction.

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LiveseySolar completely transformed the way we were approaching this… We’ve gone from having just the dream of having a practice to having a practice up and running with people making inquiries and booking for procedures… It’s extremely pleasing. We feel lucky we connected with LiveseySolar.

— Dr Matthew Russell, MBChB, FRANZCO, specialist ophthalmic surgeon and founder of VSON and OKKO

Laura Livesey

Founder & CEO

Laura Livesey is the co-founder & CEO of LiveseySolar. She has developed powerful refractive surgery marketing systems that increase patient volumes and profits for doctors, clinics, and hospitals, since 1997.

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Rod and Laura know as much about marketing surgery to patients as I know about performing it. They are an expert in the field of laser eye surgery marketing. They know this industry inside out. I believe that they could help many companies in a variety of areas including marketing materials, sales training and marketing support for doctors.

— Prof. Dan Reinstein, MD MA FRSC DABO, founder of the London Vision Clinic, UK