I know from my years of coaching, and frankly from my years of existence, that people love to be heard. I also know that the art of listening is not something people spend much time on learning. Surely you’ve witnessed a conversation between two people that goes something like this:
A: My cat knows a trick.
B: My cat knows how to drink out of the toilet.
A: My cat has her own youtube channel. You should see the latest video. It’s hilarious.
B: My cat attacks the TV when there’s another cat on the screen. I actually have to change the channel.
And on and on it goes, just two people looking for cues to respond to with their own experiences rather than acknowledging what the other person is saying. I hear so many of these kinds of conversations and it just makes my head explode. No wonder we feel so unsatisfied. We’ve all had conversations where we walked away feeling inspired and energized. And all too many where we walked away feeling drained and unheard. Why not be the person who gives the gift of listening?
It occurs to me that the thing that’s missing in most conversations is curiosity. If you’re curious, you can think of endless amounts of questions in response to the topic someone brings up. Imagine this conversation:
A: My cat knows a trick.
B: Oh yeah, what does your cat do?
A: She poops in the toilet.
B: Oh wow. How’d you get her to do that??
And so forth. Awesome, right? So to experience more satisfying conversations, use your curiosity and open yourself up to a whole new world of information.
