Good morning!
Had a frustrating situation yesterday where a colleague and I weren’t being listened to.
Actually I’ll correct that.
We were being listened to but we weren’t being heard.
There’s a difference of which I’m sure you can see.
So what makes a good listener?
This from The School of Life:
“In all this, there is one important move that good listeners don’t attempt: they don’t – however seductive it can appear – make any direct bid to solve the speaker’s problems. They step sharply back from what – at first sight – may seem like an obvious and kindly act, to reassure a friend and solve their difficulties.
They don’t tell those worried about their employment that the dispute at work is sure to have a happy ending, they don’t give practical advice about how to find a better partner, they don’t rush to deliver a lecture on why a Stoic approach to pain always reaps dividends.
They do something infinitely wiser and kinder; they let the speaker explore their own feelings of confusion and distress without a panicky urge to force a neatly-packaged resolution on them. They don’t allow their own anxieties around the expression of pain stifle their companions’ chance to let out necessary howls of agony.”
I wasn’t quite at that stage yesterday but I could have used a good listener. Luckily I found someone else who is good at it that I could verbally spew to.
What makes a good listener for you?
Someone who affirms? Someone who empathises? Someone who can hear you out?
All three of those work for me.
Try and be a good listener for someone else today.
See you in the morning,
Wade