“Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.” – Doug Larson
The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. Deep listening is an act of surrender. We risk being changed by what we hear. The most critical part of listening is to understand what is at stake for the other person(unlike the typical ‘elevator pitch‘ that we have been brought upon over the years). One that can be called a ‘pattern interrupt‘. Because the brain remembers(in a world full of distractions)what it least expects. So, deliver the unexpected.
Listening is NOT about what you think matters. It is about what matters to them. A great way to begin is to start losing yourself in their story. Go along with their tide of highs and lows. As soon as you start feeling unmoored, try to pull yourself back into your body, like returning home.
It is as if you have trained your imagination to go visiting. Once the story is done, you come back into your skin, your own worldview and introspect how you have been changed by that visit.
The velocity of being is best exemplified by movement. Keep moving. Because the best option is always off the market and never on the radar.
The easy thing we end up doing is being judgemental and critical. Time to give up on that.
To quote a Chilean saying ‘criticising a musician is easy but it is more difficult when you have a guitar in your hand‘. If everybody is hearing alike, then nobody is listening. Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery- Joyce Brothers
ENDS