How to Talk, How to Listen

Remember the childhood game in which someone whispered something into your ear and then you turned and whispered it into the next person's ear? What do you remember? I remember laughing out loud at what silliness came from the last person in the circle. Somewhere, somehow, the original message got REALLY scrambled! I'll bet that this never happens to you anymore. What? You say that it does still happen? Well, that's odd. Most people will say that they are good listeners. So, how in the world does the message get so messed up along the way? Especially, if the message is only going from one person to another! We have so many ways to communicate these days that it is even more confounding that we can't seem to get it right, consistently.

I'm thinking about my grandmother and that technology has advanced so greatly in her 88 years. They did not have a telephone when she was growing up. And now, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren have home phones, cell phones, e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging and probably more than I can know myself. Did you notice that I left out "conversation" from the previous sentence? Like letter writing, I fear that face-to-face communication is suffering a demise. How, then, do we mis-communicate so easily and so often? The world has become such a busy, fast-paced place. Fast food, microwaves, convection ovens, instant everything. The very things which are supposed to be freeing us are chaining us to another task.

How might your life be different if we slowed down? If we stopped to really listen - to anything! What might you hear that you've been missing? I miss silence from time to time. Often, after a long day, I find myself driving in silence, without even the radio on. Delicious, peaceful silence. I want to encourage you to stop and pay closer attention to not only what others are saying to you, but also, what you are saying to others. How are you saying the things that are important to you? Are you listening, really listening, to what others consider to be important? Or, are you "speed-listening"? When I was little, I remember TV commercials about the "Evelyn WoodsSpeed Reading Courses" and basically, if I remember correctly, it was teaching us to read major words where we could pick up the idea of the text. When I think of this in connection with how we hear, then, what if every 5th word that we attend to gives us a misinterpreted picture of what is actually being said? What if the important words are every 3rd or 7th and we're not listening to those? What if we hear only one key word and stop listening altogether - believing that we "KNOW" what is coming next (think Mind Reading 101). If I stop listening to what another says, assuming that I know the end of the story, then I will surely miss a lot. Not only will I miss a lot, I'm also being disrespectful of the person who is speaking. Take another perspective....what if you were the person talking and discovered that someone else only heard 1/4 - 1/3 or what you actually said. How respected would you feel?

If you believe that your communication style could be strengthened or enhanced, contact me. I will sit and listen, really listen, to what you have to say. And then, I'll let you know that I heard you fully when we focus on ways that you can become the best communicator that you can be!