Ep. 32 – Listening, The Lost Art
5 Minute Rants by THE a.m.
A podcast predicated on the journey of business and life.
Ep. 32 – Listening, The Lost Art
Timeless Relevance: Communication
Listening is an artform.
Our lives are centered around communication.
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Timeless Relevance: Communication Listening is an artform. Our lives are centered around communication. Episode Transcript. […]
July 15, 2023
Episode Transcript
Michael Abernathy 0:00
Hey what’s up, everybody? Welcome back to THE a.m. Welcome back to 5 Minute Rants. I’m your host, Mike Abernathy. Welcome back to the show, guys. Thanks for tuning in again. So we’ll Just jump straight into this.
This is something I’ve really been thinking a lot about recently, and why it is so important for life in general, is listening. All right? I think listening is such a lost art. In my generation, currently, I’m a millennial, also just in people in general, right? We tend to not listen, we tend to do what I call spinning, which is, I can’t wait for my turn to talk, I can’t wait for my turn to share. Right?
And I’m saying this because, I believe like, as a person, we miss out on 80% of life, because we’re simply not listening to the person across from us and so as a result, there’s no empathy, there’s no connection, there’s no relationship, you can’t relate to them. Right? And then not only that, you lose so much in terms of learning, in terms of growth, and you also lose a lot to be able to move forward in life in that relationship, or determine that, hey, this might not be a relationship I want to have. And so I’m saying this because especially in today’s society, we have a ton of noise and the solution seems to be scream louder, get louder, even though there’s a lot of white noise, I’ll be the loudest and the biggest source of white noise. And as a result, there’s no listening to who we’re actually talking to. We’re just screaming.
What made me think about this as I was at my nephew’s birthday, and one of the kids who were there, the age ranges, you know, were around, you know, eight to twelve. One of the kids who was there was so loud and that’s how he got attention, was being the loudest. and I thought about it, and I was like, “man, that’s like us, in business, or in life, or even in the friends circle. We just want to be the loudest, and want everybody to pay attention or listen to me. But yet, I’m not going to sow seeds of listening and I think that’s so important. Because whatever you sow is what you’re going to reap, and if you’re not going to listen, nobody’s really going to listen to you.
So if you want to be heard, if you want to be listened to, if you want to have connection, it is so important to listen. Businesses miss this all the time. So I don’t know if you heard the episodes with Ty Hunt about storytelling, I would encourage you guys to listen to them. The whole point of storytelling is so that your audience, your target audience, the people you want to do business with can create a memory with your brand, and you become an integral part of their life. But it has nothing to do with really your brand. It has everything to do with a memory. But that’s listening, because it’s actually being like, “hey, hey, person that I want to do business with, hey, customer, what do you really care about?” “What do you want in your life?” “What can I give you as a company to add to your life?” And it takes listening to understand that, and when you don’t listen, you’re not going to get any of that. You’re not going to how to know how to connect, you’re not going to create memories with your audience. You’re not going to do any of those things.
So I’m saying that listening is really a lost art. I don’t think it’s dead. But I think listening is really lost. Most of us listen through a filter. And the goal is to listen, unfiltered. What is the person actually saying? Are you actually hearing the words they’re using? Are you hearing any of that, what they’re saying and how they’re talking? Or are you filtering it so you can hear what you want to hear? Because that’s stage two. And I know we’ve talked about stage one, but that’s really stage two, are you hearing what you want to hear? Right?
And so going back to that birthday party that really sparked this thought more in a whole new level was that the kid who was being the loudest missed most of the birthday party. Instructions that were given, like for games for presents for prizes for all this stuff and he was the one even though he was the loudest and seem to get the most attention, he was the one who lost the most in the end, if you consider that losing. But that’s how it is in business. That same principle applies to us today. When you the person who listens the least, seems to lose the most, and then is normally left wondering why they lost. And that’s really how life works.
So I encourage y’all to really apply this principle. To really think about this principle of listening. To really think about the art, like 90% of your communication is listening, because when you’re talking to somebody, it’s not just a one way street, it’s two ways and there’s a flow to that conversation that you will never have if you don’t just stop, pause and listen.
Anyways guys, we’re out of time. I’ll catch you on the flip side. Peace.