Did You HEAR What You Wanted To HEAR?
No No No sirrrrs, our thread today is NOT about hearing problems that may need a hearing aid. Instead, this is intended for everyone with NO hearing problems, per se. Instead, we'd like to dig in and figure out why people with normal hearing capabilities are facing a different dilemma, and that's their tendency to HEAR WHAT THEY WANTED TO HEAR, period. Do you follow me? Can you relate to this. If NOT you yourself, did you bear witness to some people whose hearing discipline is more SELECTIVE, a.k.a. FILTERED wherein they end up hearing ONLY WHAT THEY WANTED TO HEAR and nothing more❓❓❓Heard of this fact: Schools teach courses on HOW TO PRESENT. BUT have you heard of courses on HOW TO LISTEN? Very likely you haven't heard. Oh Oh, well, LISTENING is the kind of skill that benefits from NOT just teaching but really WALKING THE TALK. To take a step back, a participant in any conversation has two goals, namely to UNDERSTAND the message and to convey an INTEREST to it⏳⏳⏳Now, before we swing to other people, how are you, how do you LISTEN? Let me share HOW do I discern if the person I'm talking to is NOT sincerely LISTENING. If he does NOT react OR comment at all to what I said, that is my reliable barometer that the person I'm talking to is NOT sincerely into that conversation. OR to give that person the benefit of the doubt, maybe there's something that's mentally bothering him RIGHT NOW📌📌📌 So what's our FIX? Let us understand that ACTIVE LISTENING has three aspects namely, COGNITIVE, EMOTIONAL and BEHAVIORAL. The COGNITIVE piece expects us to pay attention to all the information. The EMOTIONAL piece expects us to stay calm during the convu, including containing emotional reactions [e.g. are you getting annoyed OR bored]❗❗❗ Now, let's come up with a CHEAT SHEET. - REPEAT the person's last words back
- DON'T put it in your own words unless you need
- OFFER non-verbal cues that you're listening
- ASK more questions as it manifest listening
- AVOID distractions during the conversation
- APOLOGIZE if you can't understand something
- RESPOND only once the person stopped talking
- MANAGE your emotions as much as possible
- Once the person is done, take a brief pause, then compose your thoughts [as that takes a conscious effort] and since people think four times faster than the one talking, that's the time your brainpower starts to gain momentum
We hope that after your two-way interaction, you managed to HEAR NOT JUST THINGS YOU WANTED TO HEAR✅✅✅
