BETTER LISTENING SKILLS FOR BETTER UNDERSTANDING

If practicing better listening skills isn’t a life goal, it should be.

How hard is it to pay attention?

You did it in the classroom with the encouragement of a teacher.

I still remember Mr. Kraus singing ‘Toot toot tootsie goodbye’ when he tossed little tootsie rolls to students with the right answer in algebra.

Maybe we need more of that? Instead we get more of this:

 

You: Can you hear me?

Them: Of course, I’m standing right here.

You: Are you sure? Because I’m not.

Them: What’s the problem.

You: You act like you’re checked out.

Them: Is this better?

 

How many times do you explain something, get the nod, the feedback, the evidence of listening skills with the “Oh, okay. Yes, you’re right,’ and nothing changes?

Never?

Too often?

Huh?

Know your audience because knowing your audience is key before opening your mouth.

In the right room? Check.

Got all of your material? Check.

Receptive crowd? Go.

 

The Silent Guitar Speaks Up

This is the greatest guitar in the world and you’re the best guitar player as soon as you reassemble things on the table.

No one can prove me wrong if that’s the last guitar ever made, and the first one found a million years in the future.

 

Scientist1: It is in remarkable shape, I must say.

Scientist2: The owner must have been something incredible.

Scientist1: Yes, a master of his craft.

Scientist2: With an obviously light touch.

Scientist 1: Obviously, of course.

 

Meanwhile, a million years earlier:

You: Ready?

Me: One more pour.

You: That’s some good beer.

Me: And such a cool growler.

You: I like a good team that works together like a band.

Me: The beer is the guitar and singer, the growler the bass and drums.

 

You: Which one are you thinking?

Me: The one that sounds the best.

You: That depends on a few things.

Me: Which one stays in tune?

You: They all stay in tune.

Me: Which one is an icon of guitars with historical players and sounds across decades of playing.

You: You know the one.

Me: That’s the first one I’m thinking of, top left.

You: Okay, tell me the second one you’re thinking of.

 

Better Listening Skills 

Baby boomers are not braggarts, at least not as much as they used to be.

I’m not including myself in the ‘used to be’ part due to what sounds like non-bragging rights.

No hot cars, no flashy babes, no pinky ring with a hundred dollar bill folded under the stone for me.

My single guy bragging rights in my twenties was riding a bike and renting small dump apartments in dump neighborhoods and meeting nice girls who wanted to spend time with guys their mothers warned against.

 

“Don’t date a man who lives in a dump apartment house and rides a bike from Eugene to Portland.”

“Yes, because you’re such a good judge of character.”

“It’s not the dork is it?”

“It is and I love him so much I’m moving two blocks away to my own dump apartment and buying a bike.”

“Oh, honey.”

 

It’s a good brag because dumpy NW Portland’s 21st and 23rd Ave, as well as the inner-east side, gentrified after I left.

So did the women who stayed.

It was as trashy as any place I rented in Philadelphia and New York, which were monumentally trashy in the mid to late seventies, before Times Square was Disneyfied.

 

My newlywed brag is a small house in the suburbs and public transportation.

Then everyone grew up.

 

While I can’t say ‘I’ve heard it all’ I have been a keen listener for quite some time.

Six year old me heard:

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

JFK came to mind when my wife asked me to ask her what I can do for her instead of her writing a ‘honey do list’ like the last forty years.

Fourteen year old me heard:

“I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

LBJ (Lyndon B. Johnson, not LeBron James) said it was okay to quit?

Nineteen year old me heard:

“Be all you can be in the Army.”

What did I want to be? Helpful. I was an Army Medic.

When I stream WWII docs I always know who I’d be with the big red cross.

Thirty-one year old me heard:

“Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

I did.

From then until now it’s been married man life, dad life, and granddad life with no sign of letting up.

 

PS:

A work history based on better listening skills helps.

From the patient: “I think I’m having a heart attack, or it’s the hoagie I had for lunch.”

It was the hoagie, but they still got an ambulance ride to the hospital.

From account executives across the country: “This isn’t the right trade for my customer. Not the right amount of bonds, not the right percentage, and not the right settlement date. Can you fix it?

That was the job for the After Settlement Day Correction desk with Barry Lev and I at One Battery Park Plaza.

We fixed bad trades for Wall Street brokers upstairs with poor listening skills.

From museum donors: “Thank you for coming to see my collections, but I want you to know before we start that none of it came from robbing graves.”

Note in provenance: Not a grave robber.

 

PSS:

From middle school science teacher: Your child is disruptive in class after he finishes his tests.

Me: I’ll talk to him.

Me later at home: Hey kid, come over here and tell me about your science class.

Kid: You talked to my teacher?

Me: Yeah, your mother and I went to Parent / Teacher night. We talked to all of them. How is science class? What’s your grade?

Kid: I’m getting an A. It’s easy.

Me: Excellent. Keep up the good work. And do me a favor?

Kid: Jeez. Now what?

Me: Some kids struggle with science. I know I did, but not your mother. Help the teacher with idiots like I was who need more time to take a test.

Kid: Like let them cheat off me?

Me: Do they?

Kid: Sometimes when I get up after finishing early, before he picks the tests up.

Me: I think your mom did that, too, left her test in the open. Do you cheat?

Kid: No. I don’t have to.

Me: Good answer. Now go to sleep.