Are You Actually Listening?

Last night I was in my current Landmark Education seminar. Through the course of the Landmark Forum and Landmark Advanced Course – and now in the seminar – you are presented with a lot of opportunities to go up in front of the class and share “what you are getting out of this conversation”. Through the course of the evening you will often discuss many different topics – yet when people are called up to the microphone, they will often ramble on about whatever random thing they are thinking about. We will be talking about topic A, and the person will go off talking about topic X… and I am left wondering if they are actually listening to what is going on, or if they just like to hear the sound of their own voice.

People do this all the time. You will be having a “conversation” with someone, but actually you aren’t even listening to what they are saying – you are simply waiting for them to stop talking so that you can share your point of view. You’ll see this all the time on TV or hear it on the radio – though in these areas it is often done to divert a question on purpose. The host will ask someone “What do you think about the war?” and they will go off and talk about their latest proposal for the economy…

The next time you are having a conversation with someone, turn off the voices in your head and make sure that you are actually listening to the person. It isn’t always easy to do – we all have our internal dialog – but if you can catch yourself at moments, you will find that you can understand the other person much better and make deeper connections.