Please listen! If you don’t you may miss out on an amazing opportunity to… So now I got you! All kidding aside, I believe being a good listener is essential for building rewarding relationships and a bountiful business. Unfortunately, it’s not typically taught in school and especially business school.
Why is it important to be a good listener? How do you improve your listening skills? What positive changes can you count on because you have become a better listener? Keep reading!
Listening and Love go together. Listening gives you an opportunity to show you care. It builds caring connections between you and another person or group of people. When you are distracted or not fully listening it doesn’t mean you don’t care, it’s just a lost opportunity, from my perspective 🙂 In business and life, caring is where the rubber meets the road!
How can you become a better listener?
- Remove or avoid distractions (silence your phone, turn off the television…)
- Pay attention to the speaker’s body language and tone of voice
- Reflect back what you have heard (Active Listening!) Make sure you got it right!
- Show interest, understanding, sympathy, caring…
- Practice being silent for a moment or two. Remember the Power of the Pause!
- Ask questions to uncover more information and how they feel about…
- Don’t interrupt or change the subject
- Take your time before responding, especially if you are emotionally excited
As a professional counselor and business coach I spend a lot of time listening. My clients come to me feeling frustrated or worried about making the best decision regarding something that is very important to them. I have to listen to their words and beyond. This means paying attention to anything that indicates they are stressed even when they say they are fine. This happens a lot!
Benefits from being a good listener
- Better relationships from greater understanding
- Higher likability as everyone likes to share and be heard
- You’ll learn from anyone if you have an open mind and heart
- Better listening helps you resolve conflicts and minimize disagreements
- You can more easily pick up on (use your intuition) non-verbal communication
I’d say that being a good listener is one of the best life enhancement tools. How about you? Would love to hear from you! I’m all ears 🙂
Cheers to better and better!!
MarGO!
Professional Counselor and Business, Career, Life Coach
404-218-4559
MargoGeller @Gmail.com
www.MargoGeller.com
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