Keynotes · Workshops · Executive Coaching

The Best Listener in the Room

Performance training built for the business world.

We listen at about 450 words a minute. We think at nearly 3,000. Everything that matters in a meeting, a sale or a safety briefing happens in the 2,500 words in between. Matthew Dearing has spent twenty years teaching people to win that space.

Matthew Dearing, 2025. Warm smile, grey hoodie over a black tee.
Matthew Dearing
Past clients NFLDisneyPayPalGoDaddyNetflixAbbVieNautilusNextivaBlueprint EducationTurning Point USAAmerican Utilities Safety Association
The case for better listeners

Listening is an operating advantage.

Every minute, your mind produces roughly 2,500 more words than you can take in. Those words compete for your attention, and the winner decides the outcome.

In a sporting event, that competition decides who wins. In sales, it decides who gets the deal. In safety, it decides who gets hurt.From the keynote
Matthew Dearing seated in a black jacket, listening across the room.
Adult class, Phoenix. Listening is the whole job.
450words a minute, listening
3,000words a minute, thinking
2,500the gap, every minute
Three ways to bring it into your organization

Three ways in. Pricing in the open.

Keynotes, corporate training and executive coaching, based in Phoenix and delivered anywhere in the country. Pricing is right here so you can plan before you ever pick up the phone; booking starts with a twenty-minute conversation about your room and your date.

Matthew Dearing at center stage in a large venue, facing the seats before a keynote.
The keynote

The Best Listener in the Room™

$3,000one hour, travel included in Arizona

The 450/3,000 gap, earned confidence, relaxing in the face of fear, and the T.O.N.E. focus framework, with the room working two handouts live.

  • 60 minutes, keynote or general session
  • Two printed handouts per seat
  • Delivered for the American Utilities Safety Association, 2025
Check a date
The Listener Lab

Team workshops

Half or full dayrequest a proposal

The most useful exercises from twenty years of performance training, rebuilt for teams. Trust, communication under pressure and a lot of laughing at yourself.

  • Team building and communication
  • New Ideas & Creativity: idea generation your team can repeat in house
  • Anti-Sales: listening that closes without pitching
Request a proposal
Executive & leadership

Intensives and private coaching

Customrequest a proposal

For leadership teams and the individuals who run them. Built on consistent one-percent improvements, month after month.

  • C-Suite & Leadership Intensives
  • Private executive coaching
  • Keynote and presentation performance coaching
Talk it through
The signature framework

Ten behaviors. One standard people can remember, see and coach.

These are the ten chapters of the book, and the ten things a room is trained to notice in itself.

ConfidentMake statements when you know the answer and are confident in how it will be received.
RelaxedBreathe and stay loose. Nothing good comes from tension.
FocusedGive all your energy to trying to understand.
UnselfishSeek to help rather than to sell.
EngagedBe physically and emotionally affected by what you hear.
QuietStay calm. The silence will tell you everything you need to know.
SensitivePay attention to tone.
CuriousAsk the right questions. Small talk is a waste of time.
HumbleThere's great power in both "I don't know" and "I'm wrong."
StraightforwardSpeak the truth. Politeness is overrated.
Setting the T.O.N.E. for focus

Once distracted, it takes 34 minutes to get back. The average worker is interrupted every three.

Do the math and you never arrive. The only way to solve the distraction equation is to change the inputs. T.O.N.E. is how a room does that, and it's the part of the keynote people take back to their desks.

  1. T
    Tune your environmentLike a gallery: everything not needed for the work is removed so the work can take the room.
  2. O
    Own your ritualsA repeatable cue that tells your mind and body it's time to focus. Nash had one before every free throw.
  3. N
    Neutralize interruptionsExpect outside forces and defend against them, especially the ones you love.
  4. E
    Establish expectationsDecide where your attention goes and tell people what to expect of you while it's there.
Real rooms, real results

What the people who hired him say.

Matthew Dearing with Nextiva CEO Tomas Gorny.
"Like Liam Neeson, Matt is a guy with a particular set of skills that will help your organization."Tomas Gorny, CEO, Nextiva

"Our initial purpose was to have Matt help our leadership team become more confident public speakers while building our team into a unified powerhouse. Through the productive struggles our team endured, we are now well-equipped to handle the unanticipated verbal and nonverbal cues thrown our way. We've claimed Matt for life."

Mark FrenchCEO, Blueprint Education

"To see your daughter finding herself in acting and get more confidence when she leaves has been a huge thing."

Kurt WarnerNFL Pro Bowl quarterback and TV analyst

"Matt Dearing changed how I look at acting, and in turn changed my life."

Frank CaliendoActor and comedian
Matthew Dearing in a cream knit sweater, smiling, studio portrait by Brad Reed, 2025.
Matthew Dearing

An acting coach who spent twenty years learning what listening actually is.

Every technique that makes a great performer comes back to one skill: listening for the truth in the present moment. Matt built a studio on that idea, then found that the same skill is what separates the leaders, sellers and operators who win from the ones who almost do.

  • Founded Dearing Acting Studio in Phoenix in 2007; produces Chaos Comedy Improv
  • Trained with Larry Moss, coach to Leonardo DiCaprio, Helen Hunt and Hilary Swank
  • Students include Frank Caliendo, Josh McDermitt and Sofia Wylie
  • Fifteen-plus years of business training and more than a thousand case studies, alongside co-facilitator Brian Sweeney
More about Matthew
Inside the book
  1. Confident
  2. Relaxed
  3. Focused
  4. Unselfish
  5. Engaged
  6. Quiet
  7. Sensitive
  8. Curious
  9. Humble
  10. Straightforward
One chapter each
The book

The Best Listener in the Room™ is in final revision.

Ten chapters, one behavior each, written from the green room, the classroom and a few boardrooms. It opens with the night Matt's own student watched him walk out to do stand-up for the first time. Leave your address and you'll hear the day it's out.

Know what you're buying

Questions serious buyers ask.

Who is this for?

Leadership teams, sales teams, safety and operations groups, and anyone whose results depend on what happens between people in a room. The AUSA keynote was a safety conference; the Blueprint Education work was a leadership team.

In person or virtual?

Both. In person is best for the workshops because the exercises are physical. The keynote works beautifully either way.

Where are you based, and do you travel?

Phoenix, Arizona. Travel within Arizona is included in the keynote price. Elsewhere is quoted with the proposal.

What does acting have to do with it?

Everything that makes a great performer comes back to listening. The exercises come from twenty years of coaching actors, adapted for people who'd rather run a meeting than a scene. Everyone stays comfortable, and everyone gets better.

When is the book out?

It's in final revision. The keynote and the workshops are built from it, so the material is available to your team today.

Your next conversation changes what happens next

Bring The Best Listener in the Room™ to your team.

Twenty minutes, your date, your room. Matt will tell you straight which of the three fits best.

Schedule a call

480-313-9901
[email protected]

Dearing Acting Studio
10806 N. 32nd Street
Phoenix, AZ 85028