The reason humans find it so hard to be good listeners is beautifully explained in today’s NYTimes,”The Science and Art of Listening,” a piece by Seth Horowitz, an auditory neuroscientist at Brown University. Potential distractions flood your ears every fifty-thousandth of a second to alert you to possible dangers so it’s tough to keep your focus on what you are listening to, Horowitz notes. Indeed, listening tunes our brains to our surroundings faster than any other sense. How’s that for an excuse the next time someone says, “You never listen to me.” Horowitz, author of “The Universal Sense: How Hearing Shapes the Mind,” does offer some hope, however. We can train ourselves to be better listeners by listening to the sounds under the words, the emotions. Such listening is the first critical step to powerful communication. I’m taking it on with the next conversation I have. How about you?
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Thanks for sharing this article. I look forward to reading it soon. I’ve worked hard on being a better listener and for me, listening with an attitude of curiosity makes all the difference. I’ve also written about listening on my blog, if you’re interested.
I love that. Curiosity or a sense of wonder can help too. Both of these can help dismantle the sense that I often bring to a conversation, which is, “I already know that……” and I quit listening. Almost always a mistake. I will check out the listening essays on your blog.