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Five with Fry
Think of this podcast as your go-to for tackling the hard stuff with clarity and confidence. On Five with Fry, Dr. Jen Fry breaks down the rules, challenges the norms, and dives deep into the tough conversations that shape our lives—conflict, culture, family, sports, tech, and everything in between. This is where you learn to rely on yourself, embrace the messy, and come out stronger on the other side.
Five with Fry
24: Active Listening Is a Scam (If You’ve Never Been Taught How)
“Just listen.” Sound familiar?
It’s one of the most repeated pieces of conflict advice and one of the most misunderstood. In this episode of Five with Fry, I’m coming for the myth of active listening. Because expecting people to magically “just listen” during a heated argument—when they’ve never actually been taught how—is setting them up to fail.
We talk a big game about communication, but most of us didn’t grow up in households that modeled healthy conflict or taught us how to hold space when we’re angry, hurt, or defensive. And then we expect ourselves (and others) to perform this high-level skill in the middle of an emotional firestorm?
Nah. That’s like expecting someone to sink a game-winning free throw when they’ve only ever practiced in an empty gym.
In this episode, I break down why active listening is so damn hard, especially when it matters most—and what it actually takes to build that skill. No shame, no fluff. Just a real talk invitation to ditch the unrealistic advice and start practicing the hard stuff when it’s actually hard.
🎧 Subscribe to Five with Fry for more bold takes on conflict, communication, and leadership, and follow me @JenFryTalks for more.
Friends, welcome to Five with Fry, where five is the magic number, whether it's five minutes, five questions or anything that fits in five. I dive into the big topics that matter, sometimes alone and other times with a friend. From navigating sports conflict to family dynamics, travel, tech, hard-hitting issues and even politics. Nothing and I mean nothing's off the table. This is where curiosity meets conversation, and we always sit at an intersection.
Dr. Jen Fry:I'm your host, Dr Jen Fry of Jen Fry Talks. Let's get into it. Hey friends, welcome to a new episode of Five with Fry. I'm Jen Fry and today we're going to talk about a hot take of mine, Something that many people might not believe. Here it is. I don't know if I really believe in active listening, so let's talk about this. Within kind of the realm of conflict, you always hear people talk about active listening. You know, whenever you're going to be in an argument, active listen, hear both sides make a decision, come to a compromise yada yada, yada, yada here's the reality of it.
Dr. Jen Fry:You can't active listen if you've never been taught to active listen. You cannot active listen if you grew up in a household where people screamed and cussed. You can't active listen when you knew that if you spoke up, your parents wouldn't talk to you for two weeks. You can't active listen if you have not built those skills. Why? Because active listening is really really hard, just basically when you're not mad, pissed off, frustrated or whatever it is. But it's even more so difficult when you're mad, angry, pissed off, when you have all those emotions floating through your body, when you're feeling hurt, when you're feeling disappointed, when you're raging, whatever that emotion is. When you're feeling disappointed, when you're raging, whatever that emotion is, to sit there calmly and active listen is something of rainbows and unicorns and theory and not actually practical. When I hear people talking about conflict and then to tell folks they just need to actively listen, I'm like, come on, now we're not giving people skills that they actually can use and learn about. What we could be doing is teaching people to feel a little bit of shame because they actually don't know how to actively listen. So now you're telling them to do this skill they've really never done before, they've never practiced before in those really hard moments and there potentially can be something of critical importance of why this conflict needs to be solved and them not knowing how to actively listen could be detrimental to that. And so I think it's really important that when we tell anybody, any age, that a part of conflict that they should be doing is actively listening, I think we should be asking are we setting them up for the okie-doke, for being bamboozled, for being hoodwinked, if you must? Actively listening is a very difficult skill. It's not something you just learn, it's a skill, and it is something that people have to consistently practice to get better at. And I don't mean practicing in the sense of they are just okay, you speak, okay I'll listen, and then I'll speak and you listen, that's it, nobody.
Dr. Jen Fry:Actively listening means that you're practicing it in those really hard moments and you're taking stock of yourself emotionally, mentally, physically, and you're figuring out a way to focus on what that person is saying and to hear the message, even when you have all the feelings going through mental, physical, emotion, all that. That's when you're practicing in the heat of the moment. You can always practice a free throw in an empty gym, but can you do that same free throw. When the game's on the line, you have people screaming at you and if you miss it, the game and your season's over. Those are the practices. So, yes, you can do form and technique and all that when going to the gym, but the actual practice is in the here, the moment, the stress, everything on you. That's when you practice. This is the same thing with active listening. It's very sexy. You'll be like just active listen. No, when you try and do it at the hardest moments, that's when you're actually get good at that skill. That's when you're gonna be actually focusing on actively listening.
Dr. Jen Fry:That's my hot take, y'all well, friends, that's it for this episode of five with fry your dose of five insights, ideas and inspiration. If you love what you heard, don't forget to head over to where podcasts are played, to subscribe, share and leave a review. Got a topic you want us to tackle? Drop us a message. We'd love to hear from you. You can come follow me on IG, twitter, the TikTok at Jen Fry Talks, or join me on LinkedIn. Look for me at Dr Jen Fry. Until next time, stay curious, stay bold and keep the conversation going. See you on the next Five with Fry.