Will you just listen?
We live in a fast world. Our mobile phone is our new accessory. We can get our emails by phone. Go straight to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Whether we are walking along a street or in a meeting. We can get downloads in an instant. Social media talks about “real” time messaging. Everything is instant. Used to be it was just instant coffee! Now there are so may coffees, there is rarely an instant to drink them! You can order your shopping online, have a hot piping dinner from the microwave, check in for that flight you arranged. With all this instant accessibility, have we lost the ability to listen?
Listening is one of life’s greatest skills.
The greatest motivators are not the talkers. They are the listeners. They make others feel important by listening to them. Being interested in someone else can get you out of your own head.
There are different types of listening styles.
There is the surface listener. We have all experienced this. They listen for the sake of listening. Their eyes dart around the room wondering what they are missing out on. Consider how this makes you feel? When you actively listen the other person is very aware they are being heard.
The greatest type of listening is to listen with empathy.
This means to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and get a sense of how they feel. We often make judgments randomly, assume we know the full story and often we haven’t a clue of what is going on in the other person’s life. To put yourself in the other person’s shoes meaning listening with empathy. It means you are looking at life from the other person’s point of view. You will learn more, listen more intently, and the other person will know this. You will feel it, they sense it! You make a connection.
Want to impress someone?
If you really want to impress someone, talk about them for a change. What are their interests? What do they love to do? Chances are, you will find that they think you really interesting if you do this.
Listen up – it’s worth it!