Good Listener Learning Map

September 10, 2024

TRANSCRIPT

We teach the learning map. And then in terms of, for example, being a good listener, where would you rate yourself on the learning map in listening? And people routinely come back and say, well, it depends on the situation.

I'm always like, isn't there, like, a baseline level of listening that we have and then the situation kind of either ups it or lowers it or something? Or I notice every time that people are hesitant to choose an area on the learning map with any one thing because they wanna give examples of all the different scenarios in which they would rate themselves differently. And I just wondered if you have thoughts on that.

So in a in a way, I would agree with people that it's like, oh, I got listening. I got generous listening. Now I do it all the time. It does depend. I could be a virtuoso at generously listening when I'm teaching people. Right? Or some people might say, I'm really competent at listening at work.

But when I get home, I'm a bull in a china shop. So it's contextual. There are no speaking or listening happens without the relationship.

So all communication occurs inside of the relationship that you're in. Are you conscious of the relationship that you're in?

That depends. But if my relationship with you is I'll trust you, let's say, That's gonna affect my listening. Now can I become so aware and practiced that even with people that I don't trust, I can go, okay? I'm gonna generously listen even when someone is someone I don't trust.

Right? So that would be you know, if I look at, just the the Olympics right now, like, watching the Olympics, they have to be ready for everything. Right? You have to be ready for work for for a really good opponent that you're not maybe expecting to be as good as they are, and you have to be ready for you making a mistake or falling or getting triggered by something else or you know, you gotta keep your act together.

You gotta stay centered and grounded and effective inside of all the circumstances.

Right?

Inside of that context, call competing at the Olympics. But you would get home, and you could be a total wingnut. You know?

Like, completely not listening to anybody. Mhmm. So I kind of agree with that.

Yeah. Okay. Cool. I can I thought so, and then I was like, are we supposed to just choose that there is some level of listening that we have, and then, you know, it goes from there?

But it makes sense, though. I like it in the context of if you don't trust someone, then that's the filter you're listening to them through. So you would have to consciously choose to put the filter on the shelf and hear them and have some other commitment in that moment of, like, of staying centered, of being the change you wish to see, you know, not just stooping to the level of the person that you're talking to, like or whatever story you have about them. Oh, you're gonna talk to me like that?

I'm gonna listen to you like this and that retaliatory background conversation that's happening.

Yeah. And it's probably a little bit, like, be the change you wish to see as a commitment. Because it may not be that if I don't trust someone, I'm not listening to them necessarily because I'm thinking I'm gonna through this conversation, I'm gonna trust them. Right.

I'm listening because I wanna stay centered. Yeah. I wanna become really good at being able to hear people that I don't necessarily trust or wanna be in relationship with. So I'm doing it for a greater purpose in my own development.

Right? If you think about this like a like a deep distinction in my body that I can switch it on even in the most difficult scenario.