Active Listening: The Greatest Asset Anyone Can Have
Active listening. Do you practice it regularly? Do you understand why it is so important, and how it helps you understand people?
Well, being able to understand people is the greatest asset anyone can have.
In their book, Becoming a Person of Influence, John Maxwell and Jim Dornan remind us that being able to understand others can have a positive impact on more than just your success in business.
In fact, active listening can impact every area of your life.
So how can we become better at understanding the people in our life?
It starts with communication.
Often when we think about communication, we focus on talking. Yet, that’s not exactly right. The most powerful aspect of communication is not talking.
It's listening.
More than anything, most of us yearn to be really heard. (You can learn more about why we all yearn to be heard here)
When we feel that the person we're with is really listening, we feel respected. If you listen with care and ask questions to make sure you understand, you will develop a greater understanding of the people in your life.
By listening with care, you can learn what motivates a person. You can inspire respect. You can even anticipate how they may react to a situation.
You can influence them in a positive way.
Many of the conflicts that arise among people stem from their lack of understanding of one another. Most of us know this is true because we've experienced it in our lives.
Why is Active Listening Such a Struggle?
If we know how important it is to understand each other, why is it such a struggle?
Maxwell and Dornan list a number of reasons in their book:
- Fear
- Self-centredness
- Failure to appreciate differences
- Failure to acknowledge similarities
They also give us five key ideas to help turn things around:
- Everybody wants to be somebody.
- Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.
- Everybody needs somebody.
- Anybody can be somebody when somebody understands and believes in them.
- Anybody who helps somebody influences a lot of people.
Take a moment and reflect on each of these ideas. They could come in handy the next time you're trying to understand someone.
It could even change your frame of reference.
Make a conscious attempt to prioritize listening and understanding people. You will see it improve every aspect of your life (for some great proven tips on prioritizing, check out this blog post).
As our lives grow more and more busy, it’s important that we take the time to understand each other and engage in active listening.
Get to know the people in your life. Be a positive influence in their world.
There is a quote I keep on my office wall. I learned it at a very young age, and it has always had a huge impact on me:
“To the world you might be one person, but to one person you just might be the world.” - Anonymous.
The best is yet to come. It starts with you.
Your friends,
The UpCloseTeam
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This article was originally published on May 17, 2017 and has been updated.
