Skillful listening techniques encourage a speaker to safely and openly tell his or her story, without fear of judgment by the empathic listener. A talented active listener can thus open and engage in meaningful conversations with colleagues, employees, supervisors, professors, students, friends, and family members. The participant in this seminar will learn fundamental facilitative mediation techniques such as restating, reflecting, and reframing a person’s words, meanings, and feelings back to the speaker, as well as acknowledging and validating their importance to that person. Further, the seminar will introduce the concept of underlying interests and their role in understanding the root of conflict and in the resolution of disputes. The skills learned will help the participant quickly build trust with others and establish groundwork for productive professional and personal relationships.