There is no doubt that listening is the most important skill you can possibly learn. This is true whether your goal is to get great results in the dating arena, enjoy huge rewards in business, or grow your social circle.
Why is listening so important? Simply because at base listening is information gathering—research, in other words. And research is usually—rightfully—regarded as the central element of any project .
If you don’t do your research then you are not prepared, and without preparation you are lost.
Everything is sales
This all circles back to one of the key tenets of my worldview, that everything comes down to sales. I’m serious. Whatever line of work you are in, whatever your speciality is, you are in sales.
If you are a shop assistant your job is to sell to the customers. If you are a violinist then a part of your job is to sell your violin playing to the best orchestra or the highest-paying band you can find. And if your job is a vet you must sell yourself as the best possible vet to pet owners in your local area.
Everyone is selling something. As a writer I am in the business of selling my ideas. A politician must sell his vision for the future to his country and his party. A pop singer must sell their songs and their image.
The only truly effective way to sell to someone is to first find out what they want and then to match it as closely as possible with your offer. This is the same whether you are asking someone out on a date, or you are trying to get them to sign up as a coaching client.
And the way to find out what people want is to listen to them.
In fact, this is so important that it’s no exaggeration to say that peoples’ careers—and their livelihoods—are won and lost over their ability to listen.
So what are the best ways to improve your listening skills? I’m going to to share my top 3 with you now. They might not be what you expect!
1. Read
It may seem strange to endorse reading as a way to improve listening, but conversation is based on language, and in language nuance is crucial. I’m not suggesting that you learn lots of fancy long words, since most people don’t use those in everyday speech anyway. What I am saying is you should do everything you can to improve your lingual faculties. Reading is a bit like doing reps in the gym. Over time you will see an improvement in your skill level.
2. Watch movies, TV series and plays
Language is not merely about what people say—it’s also about what they don’tsay: subtext, in other words.
Subtext is a central part of screenwriting—in fact, any movie or play that doesn’t use subtext probably won’t get made because it is a lousy piece of work. The whole point of drama is that it dramatises. If you have the characters simply stating everything that is going on then there is no drama. By paying close attention to subtext as you are watching, you will improve your ability to pick up on it in your conversations with potential lovers and business partners.
3. Talk to a LOT of people—but let them do most of the talking
Practise makes perfect, and it is only by experiencing a lot of different conversations that you will learn to pick up on subtext and listen better. At the same time, if you’re running your mouth off and not giving the other person a chance to respond then you are missing a trick.
Make a point of putting yourself in as many social situations as you can, but say less when you do. Instead, consciously listen intently to the other person, and try to figure out what they’re really saying. After a while, you will find that your ability to interpret others want improves significantly.
I am not saying that in either love or business you should simply wrap this up with a bow and deliver it: you need to play harder to get than that. But at least if you understand where your opposite is coming from you will be better equipped to determine how to deal with them.
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