Building Your Listening Abs
I counsel people to think of listening in the same way as they think of their abs—if you want tight and strong abs, develop a program and work at it with rigor. Looking at photos of models won’t change a thing.
No matter how many books you might read about listening, or even surrounding yourself with superb listeners won’t build your listening abs. Following are some exercises that will develop your listening muscles.
1. Close your eyes and listen to sounds. First, listen to and identify the sounds outside of the room. Second, listen to and identify the sounds inside the room. You should be able to get better and better at differentiating where the sound is coming from and provide some details about what it is.
2. Instead of listening to the sound and rhythm of a song, listen to the lyrics. I’ve noticed I can sing along with songs I grew up with, but have little idea about the words to new songs; yet, my grandkids can sit in the back seat and sing in sync with the radio. When I really focus on the lyrics, I stop hearing conversations, tires on the road, and traffic. That could be dangerous, so work on hearing lyrics in a safer place than the car.
3. Similarly, listen to a news piece on the radio, and pick out the key points. It’s similar to being in school and selecting what to take notes on, or listening intentionally to what’s important. It’s quite a surprising experience when two people listen to the same news story and tell one another what they got out of it. Often there will be differences of opinion and interpretations of the content. That mirrors most interactions, still people will insist they were listening and understand what was said.
To be a well-muscled listener, you have to be able to pick out the same key points as the other person in the interaction. In other words, you have to understand what the other person listens for, as well as what’s important for you. It’s like being able to lift equally heavy weights with each arm. If you only listen for what matters to you, you will never have well-developed listening abs that you need to be agile and strong when making decisions and collaborating with others.
