The Power of Listening
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I believe in motivation. I believe in motivational speaking. Clearly motivational speaking is popular world-wide. On Google it received 4.3 million results in .71 seconds. I can watch motivational videos on YouTube, read motivational books on my Kindle, and attend a motivational rally.
I believe even more strongly in the motivational power of listening—even though it only received 756 thousand results in .64 seconds. To top that, the only reason why there were any results was because they changed my search words to “motivational interviewing.” With our extremely busy world, there is great power in listening.
In fact, communication experts consider good listening an even greater accomplishment than speaking well. Most people will agree that listening well takes a lot more energy than talking. Former talk show host Larry King puts it this way,
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Listening is one of the most important skills one can possess. We listen to obtain information, to understand, for enjoyment, and to learn. Given all this listening, you would think we’d be good at it. Research shows that we’re not. In fact, research shows that we retain only 25-50% of what we hear.
One of the simplest ways to improve your listening skills is to practice “active listening.” This is where you make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that another person is saying but, more importantly, try to understand the complete message being sent. Here are a few simple things you can do immediately to practice activelistening.
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If you’re more of an auditory and visual learner, you may want to watch Julian Treasure, chair of the Sound Agency, on how to use sound. In his TED Talk, “5 Ways to Listen Better” he begins by sharing the ‘7 deadly sins’ of conversation such as gossip, judging, and complaining. He then gives four positive and powerful ways to improve your conversation style.
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If you didn’t believe in listening, you wouldn’t be reading to this point in this MoMo. Thank you for that! I’m here to support you. I’m here to listen. Just reply to this email to reach me.
–Glenna
More resources on listening:
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