How a skilled listener can fundamentally transform every conversation
The art of listening is not simply about absorbing information like a passive sponge. But a skilled listener is much more like a master of martial arts. Every single idea and argument you strike them with gets swiped and diverted into a new and different directions. These new insights and perspectives aren’t a mere accident. Instead they were carefully conceived through perfectly-timed and precise questioning.
As you spend more and more time verbally sparring with a skilled listener, you become more confident in your arguments and ideas. For each thought and feeling that makes direct contact with a skilled listener gets met with a firm and empowering sense of verbal affirmation and support.
And even if your ideas and points may, at times, cause you to lose your balance and topple over, a skilled listener creates a safe environment that encourages you to get right back up.
In the end, we live in a world that tends to shower praise and glory to world-class speakers and their life-transforming ideas. However, we often forget that many of them would never be as influential as they are today without an equally skilled listener who has always been by their side.
