Learn To Listen

One of the greatest, Winston Churchill once said, “Speech is silver while silence is golden”, which you will all accept. Before reading any further just close your eyes and think for a moment about the one person whom you will always love to talk to!

That person must be a great listener isn’t?

There is a great value in silence while communicating, it can be healing and it can signify understanding. While silence not only means shutting of the mouth but opening up the valves for listening. How many of you have come across this or used this sentence, “I’m only responsible for what I said and not what you understood”. Presuming majority would say yes, let me ask you to push yourself to think why did our subconscious mind make us all say that? It is a result of not listening, you may clearly be either in the receiving end or also a point of where it all starts.

Let me begin with the list of people who will lose a great deal if they do not give importance to listening. Well, is there such a list? Yes, and it’s going to be really big. Why does anyone need to be a good listener based on their profession? Leave out others. Think about you. Will you be able to stay successful without being a good listener? Answer which I can hear, coming out of your mind is NO. But are we all good listeners? Maybe yes, maybe not.

Since I’m into Marketing, I’ll take into consideration an example of a salesperson’s work. With the kind of exposure that people have these days, they are often presold through advertisements or other means, what they have come in to seek is some re assurance about making the right decision and more importantly most people do not buy those things, - but they buy what those things will do for them: give them prestige, a sense of power, comfort, economy etc. But how in heaven’s name will you identify if you only keep your mouth wide open? Half the time people are busy telling you what they want, and with what I’ve seen and understood, inexperienced salesman will only say things that they know and that might potentially loose a customer.

Let us move to a psychiatrist. Why do people who are confused, go to them? And have you ever been eager to know what kind of treatment process goes on? The confused usually talks a lot and what is expected out of the psychiatrist is to listen keenly and help with a solution, so it is up to you to make a decision between being a confused person talking a lot unnecessarily or a person with calmness who is ready to listen more and be of use to a lot more people?

Listening is the line between talking and waiting for your turn to talk and it is a fine art because you may be holding your tongue, but it doesn’t mean that you have to crawl into a hole. Good listening involves active participation which is involvement. Next time on wards try practicing this – smile when the other person smiles, frown when they frown and nod if you have to. Believe me these facial expressions will be well appreciated, and the biggest form of respect that you can give to another person is actually listen when the other person talks.

Listening is complete only when there is a complete hearing with your full senses. Never ever settle for a 95% or 99%, always get the whole story with your ears and eyes. Avoid interruptions and always concentrate. When this happens even if you are looking at something else you could still be listening to a lecture and whatever is being heard will probably make total sense. The common mistake how many ever times we come across even with ourselves is that, we do not listen to understand but to reply which is going to suffuse total confusion.

Think of those many people who are hearing impaired. God has given you a great opportunity to hear, why not take it to the next level and you learn to listen?