DW's Blog

Presence

by DW Green — June 19, 2015

Listening is an extremely important quality. Being “present” in a conversation is the biggest gift you can give to another person. When someone feels that they have been “heard” they feel accepted and appreciated. We can all learn when we truly listen. 

The listening article below by Chris McGoff is excellent. I hope you it enjoy it as much as I do. I read it often to remind myself to be present in my conversations.

Stop Listening

Make yourself available.

I ARRIVED AT THE RESTAURANT early to ensure we would be seated at a private table.
My expected guest was an executive of a major enterprise and one of my most important customers. I requested the meeting with her to solicit her feedback on how my team was doing and to better understand her priorities and pressing issues—to hear how we could enhance our value to her. I also needed to ask her a favor. I had a big agenda, and the stakes were high. Too much was on the line merely to listen attentively. I was there to be a listening from nothing deeply.

You have likely internalized the value of listening. I now challenge you to stop listening and start being a listening from nothing deeply. How does this differ? The changes are subtle; the shifts in behavior, small. But the response will be staggering: People will figure things out on their own, will feel better about themselves, will reveal things of intense value, will seek you out, will find you charismatic, will think you are an excellent conversationalist, and will increase their trust in you and their loyalty to you.
To understand what the phrase being a listening, from nothing, deeply means, we must break it down, piece by piece.

• Being a listening. Listening is an activity, something you do. Being a listening is a state of being, something you are. Listening requires effort; being a listening simply requires presence. In being a listening, you are making yourself completely available for another person to speak into. Being a listening is selfless and generous. It is a gift.
• From nothing. While being a listening from nothing, you must relinquish your right to do or be anything else. Reflect on all the times you only convey half of your thoughts before you sense that the other person is poised to interrupt you. They are so anxious to tell you what they think that they don’t allow you the time to complete your thought. In their hyper-activated analyzing and judging minds, your words are simply raw material to be quickly reconstituted into things that they want to say. Now imagine speaking to someone who has relinquished their right to prepare and construct a response or even to think about what is being said until you have stopped saying what you want to say. Amazing, isn’t it?
• Deeply. When trying to focus exclusively on what is being said, your brain buzzes with filtering and shutting out extraneous noise. Furrowed brows, wrinkled foreheads, leaning forward, and regular nods are outward expressions saying I’m focusing on what you are saying. But all this concentration activity merely distracts you further! What outwardly appears to aid listening is internally hindering it. When listening deeply, you take in absolutely everything. In opening yourself up to the subtle sounds of your surroundings, you enable yourself to better absorb what is explicitly being said. This may seem counterintuitive, but try it. When the person speaking finishes a thought, wait in silence—giving them time to take stock of what they said and formulate their next thought. Your job is to hold that silent space, to act as an open clearing into which additional thoughts can be formulated and shared. You will find that these secondhand third-order thoughts tend to be the most profound and valuable. Tragically, most of this intellectual gold rarely sees the light of day in our rapid-fire world.

You know when you have stopped listening, and started being a listening, when you take these five steps: 1) You are fully present, comfortable, and exactly where you choose to be; 2) You feel privileged to create a vast, judgment-free clearing for people to speak into so people can create themselves for you as they rarely have a chance to do with anyone else; 3) You are curious to know the thinking behind their thinking—beyond what they are saying but also why they are saying it in this way, at this time; 4) You are generous and patient—when people complete an idea, you hold a silence that is broken only by their additional thoughts, assuming that they have three packets to share before they will ask what you think; and 5) When you are asked What do you think?, you take few seconds to think about your response, because you are devoid of preformed opinions. Your response will often be in the form of probing since you want to delve deeper.

If this listening is so valuable, why is it so rare? Narcissists and self-absorbed people (most of us at some time) listen only from what does this mean to me? Insecure people process what they’re hearing in real time so they can respond quickly, thus protecting themselves from being discovered as intellectual frauds. The players are chronically distracted by the possibility that someone over there or the text that just buzzed in their pocket might be more important than the person with whom they’re communicating.

Today’s astonishing advances in technology have tricked us into feeling hyper-connected in an already kinetic world. But the truth is, this increase in connectivity is directly proportional to an increase in loneliness. Now, more people are learning the joy of disconnecting from over there and being fully present to that which is right here.

A practical way to start being a listening from nothing deeply is to ask a person simple questions: What’s it like being you today? or What is becoming clear to you? or Tell me something about our relationship that I do not know. Follow the five steps, and brace for impact. By being a listening from nothing deeply you create clearings into which others can speak, share, and feel secure as they express their most intimate feelings and ideas.

That night at the restaurant, my guest responded by sharing deeply, vulnerably and authentically. She talked about our project and helped me see some changes I could make to enhance our value. She told me about pressures she was feeling from her boss. She told me about her aspirations and what she was contemplating doing with her life after this job. When we said our goodbyes two hours later, my guest thanked me profusely for the extraordinary conversation and meal, though I said very little and her food went largely un Our relationship transcended to a new level of trust and caring. And the next day, she took care of that favor I requested.

I invite you to try being a listening from nothing deeply. People seek this listening. And when they find it in you, they’ll offer you their concerns and ideas, their caring feedback and praise, their burdens and treasures, their deepest fears and highest hopes. The rewards will be tremendous.

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