A short conversational transcript of a YouTube clip ("Day 191: Hear me...") in which Chad Silverstein and another speaker discuss the importance of listening: strive to understand others before seeking to be understood, validate people so they feel heard, and the link between listening and effective leadership.
Chapters
I remember learning with my kid Stephen.
Covey's.
His mantra about striving to understand before we're trying to be understood. There's so much truth to that. People just want to be heard.
Have you ever noticed that when you're.
In a conversation with somebody, and maybe.
You don't because you're unconscious of it.
But if you watch someone else have a conversation, you'll see that someone says something and. And then the other person just turns it inward and they respond with what they want the other person to hear about whatever it is that they've experienced.
And it goes back and forth where.
They just keep talking and they just keep turning everything inward because they can relate to the situation, because they want to be understood.
And.
The best leaders are the best listeners. And they don't need to turn the conversations inward.
They can validate what they're hearing. They can respond to what someone is.
Saying without feeling the need to be understood themselves.
It's very natural feeling to want to.
Feel understood, but you have to be conscious of the fact that you're doing it. And you have to study people around you and realize that this is what people want and they don't even know it. So you can give them this gift.
And make them feel a certain way. And if you're a leader, this is extremely important, especially if you're influencing people to come of rally around this shared common purpose that you have at whatever you're leading.
And the consequence of not making people feel understood basically leaves them feeling like you don't care. And that may not be the case. And that's a sad thing for someone to feel or believe when it's not true. It takes a really strong core to be able to navigate throughout your day focused on everyone around you and what they have going on without that desire to kind of turn it inward towards yourself. So you have to fight that tendency and make sure you focus outward.
You know, you want to make sure that you respond to people when they're talking to you, validate that you're hearing.
Them, that you're listening versus, you know.
Thinking about what you're going to say.
Next and then hitting them with it.
After they're done talking.
And the best conversationalists, they do this effortlessly. And even though it may seem effortlessly.
Usually they're working on it really hard or they have worked on it really.
Hard in their life to get to that point. So build that discipline and seek to understand before you seek to be understood.
