Always have a toothpick handy!

  Remember that great Simon and Garfunkel song from the 60’s?   One of the verses went:

People talking without speaking, 

People hearing without listening. 

How true, how true!!  Truly good listeners are very rare.  We all love it when we come across one because they make us feel so good.  They seem to hang on every word we speak and can actually feed back what we say to us thus confirming how important they feel we are.  We recognize them easily.   Good listeners make us feel important and we trust them.   To stand out today, you don’t need to be a great listener –just be a good listener because everyone else is so terrible at it.   Unfortunately, for most of us, listening is tough.  We seem to have so many distractions that get in the way.  We have all experienced situations in which we have been  speaking with someone and all of a sudden we realize that although we have been hearing the sound waves excaping the speaker’s mouth, we have no idea what they have been saying.  We have been caught with our minds wandering and have been justly embarassed by our inattention.   

It’s sad that nobody taught  us how to be good listeners when we were younger.   Why do some people seem to do it naturally?  Do they know something the rest of us don’t know? 

 Read on and discover the secret to being a good listener. 

I had the pleasure about 20 years ago of attending a seminar in Las Vegas.  The speaker talked on many subjects but the most interesting to me was a short session on something called  Neuro-Linquistics.  He showed that as powerful as our remarkable brain is, it can only process new information one bit at a time in serial fashion.  In other words, our brain, the most powerful computing instrument known to man can only process one bit of information, one after another, in single file.  It can’t process two bits of information at the same time or in parallel fashion.  Now, of course our wonderful brain can process new information very, very quickly but still; only one bit at a time.  To prove that, for example, we can’t think of brown cow and white horse at the same time.  You can think of the cow and an instant later think of the horse but not both at the same time. 

So what does that little known fact have to do with our listening skills with others? 

We all have this little voice inside of us.  It’s constantly carrying on a dialogue with us.  Call it what you want but our little voice never shuts up.  It’s talking to you right now as you read this article.  It’s saying things like, “I wish this guy would get to the point, or, I’m really spending too much time on line or, this is the best blog I have ever been to.”  Whatever it says, its no big deal when you are reading.  If your inner voice distracts you, you can just go back and reread what you missed.  No harm, no foul!

  However, it’s not that easy when you have another human being across from you.  Now if your inner voice distracts you, you’re in trouble!  All you can do is pretend you were listening and hope you get lucky.  Or, you can just apologize and say something inane like, “I’m sorry, I just checked out there for a bit and didn’t hear what you said.”   The problem is that brain of ours can only process information in serial fashion.  Since there are two voices playing, we have to choose which one to listen to….our inner voice or that of the person we are speaking to.  We can’t listen to both at the same time!  The problem is that we tend to listen to our internal voice above all others because it is US.  It is who we are and our egos won’t let our inner voice be shut out by others.  This fact sure makes it tough to be a good listener.   The solution, however, is easy!  The key is to shut down our internal voice which frees us up to totally focus on what the other person is saying. 

The technique is simple.  All you have to do is repeat silently and verbatim to yourself exactly what the other person is saying as they are saying it.   By doing that, we totally shut down our internal voice and focus 100% on what the other person is saying.  Try it.   It works like magic.   Go grab someone and start a conversation.  You will remember exactly what they are saying because you are 100% laser focused.  We all, at times, let our inner voice begin to interrupt when we are speaking with others.  It doesn’t have to be a sales situation either.  We can be talking to our wives or husbands or kids or anybody in any situation.  We are the victims of our inner voice.  So, the next time you find your mind wandering and you recognize that you aren’t paying total attention like you should…you can get back on track immediately by shutting down your inner voice using this technique.  

Please let me know if this technique worked for you.  Thanks for sharing some of your valuable time with me.  Rick