Are you a talker or a listener?

Words of Wisdom / By

Words of wisdom for this week.

“Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.”
~ Cicero

Hearing and listening are two different things. Hearing is a physical act. Listening is a mental one. The ears collect sound waves and send them to the brain for interpretation. If you don’t have a hearing problem, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are a good listener.

One of the biggest complaints many women have about the men in their lives is that they don’t listen. I have not done any formal research on the different listening abilities between men and women, but I believe women are better listeners than men.

Kids don’t listen. Their attention span is less than 30 seconds. Employees often don’t listen, they have their own agendas. Parents don’t listen to their children they are to busy, distracted or just not interested. Politicians don’t listen (we could write a book on that one). Spouses don’t often listen due to stress, a lack of concentration or they are just distracted by any number of things.

Why don’t people listen?

  1. They don’t care about the other person.
  2. They are more concerned with their own ideas or thoughts.
  3. It takes too much work to listen, so they just fake it.
  4. They don’t know how to listen.
  5. They think they are listening.
  6. They have no interest in the subject.
  7. Their ego (the need to manipulate, control or look good) gets in the way of their listening.
  8. They don’t like the other person.
  9. The other person’s non-verbal communication style gets in the way.
  10. They don’t trust the other person.
  11. They think they know more about the subject than the person talking.
  12. They don’t respect the other person.
  13. They don’t believe the other person
  14. They are preoccupied with their own stuff.

Do you have someone in your life that doesn’t listen? If you do I’ll bet you live with a great deal of frustration. One of the greatest compliments we can pay another human being is to be willing to listen to them; to give them the gift of our time, attention, energy and interest.

Are you a good listener or do you talk too much? One way to find out is to observe how often you interrupt others with your need to talk.